It is interesting how, when you are all-about studying something, how some strands of research just ferment away all by themselves- until something new pops up- and it brings all the other strands in to line. This happened today.
In the year I've been dedicating my study to matters Dodgson, even with reading widely, and finding stuff out I never knew before about the 'Alice' books- I still couldn't get a proper handle on him. I couldn't 'feel' who he was exactly and what made him tick. I was beginning to think that this was either par for the course when you are researching ( I've recently been focussing on Florence Becker Lennon's Biography, and she kind of says that at the beginning. ) She says it's like peeling off the layers of an onion, only to find more layers. Which is how I've felt up until this morning...
It began yesterday at the Bookroom. For months I've been picking up a particular book, and not knowing why it held my interest. So, I'd put it back, get on with what I was about, and forget about it- only to return and repeat the process. Then, again whilst preparing the biographies for Dimbola's 'Alice-The Illustrators' exhibition, I came across the book of my fascination and things started to get interesting.
The book is called 'The King of the Golden River' and it's by good old Ruskin ( the one Dodgson was all-jealous-nuts about- who told him he was wasting his time trying to illustrate his own 'Alice'. )
Now we also know, that Dodgson's nose was out of joint with Ruskin because he not only taught the Liddell's to draw, but they invited him round for tea regularly as their friend. Dodgson turned him into the Gryphon as we know- for his sins.
Well Emily, Ruskin's book has the accolade of being the first English Children's Fairy Story- and it came out in 1846.
1846 was also the year that Edward Lear's 'Book of Nonsense' came out.
We also know that Lear was quite a Character- he sang at Salon gatherings in London, he was popular,
arty and Lord Derby's missive of Grandchildren adored him, The Book of Nonsense was an immediate success. As we've also pondered, Dodgson and Lear are highly likely to have met, and GiGi thinks he's Humpty Dumpty's muse. Yet curiously neither Lear or Dodgson ever mention the existence of the other in any correspondences or diaries...
CLD was fourteen when these two books came out- a time when unhappy away at school- he wrote several correspondences to his sister reviewing countless current affairs and commenting his own opinions on them. Then, before he went up to Oxford, he retreated into the bosom of his family- and diary entries are missing.
Fast-forward to when he was illustrating the original MS for 'Alice' and we see a rather similar style...
Between the years that these two books came out- and the writing of his own Fairy Story- Dodgson had made puppet theatres for his siblings and regularly visited shows ( loving the whole back-stage vibe, and making friends with the Terry family, particularly Ellen ) and told creature-verses to his cousins in Whitby, and generally let everyone know that he knew lots about the Arts and what was on at the time.
Personally Em, I've finally got to where I feel I know what drove him and made him tick. This prim, stuffy Oxford Don, who showed very little interest in teaching his students was actually a frustrated 'Bohemian', and not being noticed or accepted by those he wished to be like- he transferred his Artistic temperament quite simply to the audience who were most willing to participate- little girls. They were entranced by his imagination- his tales, his drawings, his dressing up box, his travelling garb of Top-Hat, black-bag full of toys and clever little tricks. No-one else was. Oxford so did not get him at all.
So when he got chance to publish 'Alice' out came his Edward-Lear-ness in his illustrations- only to have them knocked- fairly and squarely by Ruskin. And so. he employed Tenniel to illustrate instead.
How easily bruised was our aesthete, how full of envy and strife. Instead of releasing the creative prowess he'd showered on siblings and cousins with magic tricks, inventions, tales and rhyme- along-side an acute thirst for the Literary and Theatrical 'new-releases', he'd trodden his Father's chosen path for him- and ended up teaching Maths at Oxford and taken Holy Orders, which caused him angst regarding going to the Theatre.
Poor old Dodgson, he must have trodden a lonely-path. Quintessentially Oxford in word, thought and deed, he actually didn't want to be. A freer spirit was hidden within- but one that could only find release through watching others, and telling them fantastical tales- ones in which he added social comment, parodied those who had spurned him, and pulled it all together into a simple 'Fairy Story', a very topical theme.
Yet Lewis Carroll's have stood the test of time- never been out of print, and have permeated the English Language.
Posterity gets food from all this work- I'd like to think Dodgson's soul does too!
Until next time Emily,
Your ever-loving Grand-Mother, GiGi xxx
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