Some critics have likened Carroll to Humbert Humbert, the narrator of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita. Both were indeed attracted to what Nabokov called nymphets, but their motives were quite different. Lewis Carroll’s little girls may have appealed to him precisely because he felt sexually secure with them. There was a tendency in Victorian England, reflected in much of its literature and art, to idealize the beauty and virginal purity of little girls. This surely made it easier for Carroll to take for granted that his fondness for them was on a high spiritual plane. Carroll was a devout Anglican, and no scholar has suggested that he was conscious of anything but the noblest intentions, nor is there a hint of impropriety in the recollections of his many child-friends.
Although Lolita has many allusions to Edgar Allan Poe, who shared Humbert’s sexual preferences, it contains no references to Carroll. Nabokov spoke in an interview about Carroll’s “pathetic affinity” with Humbert, adding that “some odd scruple prevented me from alluding in Lolita to his wretched perversion and to those ambiguous photographs he took in dim rooms.”
Nabokov was a great admirer of the Alice books. In his youth he translated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into Russian—“not the first translation,” he once remarked, “but the best.” He wrote one novel about a chess player (The Defense) and another with a playing-card motif (King, Queen, Knave). Critics have also noticed the similarity of the endings of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading.*
Several reviewers of AA complained that its notes ramble too far from the text, with distracting comments more suitable for an essay. Yes, I often ramble, but I hope that at least some readers enjoy such meanderings. I see no reason why annotators should not use their notes for saying anything they please if they think it will be of interest, or at least amusing. Many of my long notes in AA—the one on chess as a metaphor for life, for example—were intended as mini-essays.
The names of readers who provided material for this book are given in the notes, but here I wish to acknowledge a special debt to Dr. Selwyn H. Goodacre, current editor of Jabberwocky and a noted Carrollian scholar. Not only did he provide numerous insights, but he also gave generously of his time in reading a first draft of my notes and offering valuable corrections and suggestions.
*For the many allusions to Alice in Nabokov’s fiction, see note 133 (pages 377–78, Chapter 29) of The Annotated Lolita, edited by Alfred Appel, Jr. (McGraw-Hill, 1970).
CONTENTS
I. DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE
II. THE POOL OF TEARS
III. A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE
IV. THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL
V. ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR
VI. PIG AND PEPPER
VII. A MAD TEA-PARTY
VIII. THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND
IX. THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY
X. THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE
XI. WHO STOLE THE TARTS?
XII. ALICE’S EVIDENCE
All in the golden afternoon1
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.2
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict “to begin it”:
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
“There will be nonsense in it!”
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast—
And half believe it true.
And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time—” “It is next time!”
The happy voices cry.
Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out—
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.
Alice! A childish story take,
And, with a gentle hand,
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers
Pluck’d in a far-off land.3
1. In these prefatory verses Carroll recalls that “golden afternoon” in 1862 when he and his friend the Reverend Robinson Duckworth (then a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, later canon of Westminster) took the three charming Liddell sisters on a rowing expedition up the Thames. “Prima” was the eldest sister, Lorina Charlotte, age thirteen. Alice Pleasance, age ten, was “Secunda,” and the youngest sister, Edith, age eight, was “Tertia.” Carroll was then thirty. The date was Friday, July 4, “as memorable a day in the history of literature,” W. H. Auden has observed, “as it is in American history.”
The trip was about three miles, beginning at Folly Bridge, near Oxford, and ending at the village of Godstow. “We had tea on the bank there,” Carroll recorded in his diary, “and did not reach Christ Church again till quarter past eight, when we took them on to my rooms to see my collection of micro-photographs, and restored them to the Deanery just before nine.” Seven months later he added to this entry the following note: “On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of Alice’s adventures underground . . .”
Twenty-five years later (in his article “Alice on the Stage,” The Theatre, April 1887) Carroll wrote:
Many a day had we rowed together on that quiet stream—the three little maidens and I—and many a fairy tale had been extemporised for their benefit—whether it were at times when the narrator was “i’ the vein,” and fancies unsought came crowding thick upon him, or at times when the jaded Muse was goaded into action, and plodded meekly on, more because she had to say something than that she had something to say—yet none of these many tales got written down: they lived and died, like summer midges, each in its own golden afternoon until there came a day when, as it chanced, one of my little listeners petitioned that the tale might be written out for her. That was many a year ago, but I distinctly remember, now as I write, how, in a desperate attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without the least idea what was to happen afterwards. And so, to please a child I loved (I don’t remember any other motive), I printed in manuscript, and illustrated with my own crude designs—designs that rebelled against every law of Anatomy or Art (for I had never had a lesson in drawing)—the book which I have just had published in facsimile. In writing it out, I added many fresh ideas, which seemed to grow of themselves upon the original stock; and many more added themselves when, years afterwards, I wrote it all over again for publication. . . .
Stand forth, then, from the shadowy past, “Alice,” the child of my dreams. Full many a year has slipped away, since that “golden afternoon” that gave thee birth, but I can call it up almost as clearly as if it were yesterday—the cloudless blue above, the watery mirror below, the boat drifting idly on its way, the tinkle of the drops that fell from the oars, as they waved so sleepily to and fro, and (the one bright gleam of life in all the slumberous scene) the three eager faces, hungry for news of fairy-land, and who would not be said “nay” to: from whose lips “Tell us a story, please,” had all the stern immutability of Fate!
Alice twice recorded her memories of the occasion. The following lines are
quoted by Stuart Collingwood in The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll:
Most of Mr. Dodgson’s stories were told to us on river expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My eldest sister, now Mrs. Skene, was “Prima”, I was “Secunda”, and “Tertia” was my sister Edith. I believe the beginning of Alice was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick. Here from all three came the old petition of “Tell us a story,” and so began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us—and perhaps being really tired—Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, “And that’s all till next time.” “Ah, but it is next time,” would be the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day, perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay.
Alice’s son, Caryl Hargreaves, writing in the Cornhill Magazine (July 1932) quotes his mother as follows:
Nearly all of Alice’s Adventures Underground was told on that blazing summer afternoon with the heat haze shimmering over the meadows where the party landed to shelter for a while in the shadow cast by the haycocks near Godstow. I think the stories he told us that afternoon must have been better than usual, because I have such a distinct recollection of the expedition, and also, on the next day I started to pester him to write down the story for me, which I had never done before. It was due to my “going on, going on” and importunity that, after saying he would think about it, he eventually gave the hesitating promise which started him writing it down at all.
Finally, we have the Reverend Duckworth’s account, to be found in Collingwood’s The Lewis Carroll Picture Book:
I rowed stroke and he rowed bow in the famous Long Vacation voyage to Godstow, when the three Miss Liddells were our passengers, and the story was actually composed and spoken over my shoulder for the benefit of Alice Liddell, who was acting as ‘cox’ of our gig. I remember turning round and saying, “Dodgson, is this an extempore romance of yours?” And he replied, “Yes, I’m inventing as we go along.” I also well remember how, when we had conducted the three children back to the Deanery, Alice said, as she bade us good-night, “Oh, Mr. Dodgson, I wish you would write out Alice’s adventures for me.” He said he should try, and he afterwards told me that he sat up nearly the whole night, committing to a MS. book his recollections of the drolleries with which he had enlivened the afternoon. He added illustrations of his own, and presented the volume, which used often to be seen on the drawing-room table at the Deanery.
It is with sadness I add that when a check was made in 1950 with the London meteorological office (as reported in Helmut Gernsheim’s Lewis Carroll: Photographer) records indicated that the weather near Oxford on July 4, 1862, was “cool and rather wet.”
This was later confirmed by Philip Stewart, of Oxford University’s Department of Forestry. He informed me in a letter that the Astronomical and Meteorological Observations Made at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, Vol. 23, gives the weather on July 4 as rain after two P.M., cloud cover 10/10, and maximum shade temperature of 67.9 degrees Fahrenheit. These records support the view that Carroll and Alice confused their memories of the occasion with similar boating trips made on sunnier days.
The question remains controversial, however. For a well-argued defense of the conjecture that the day may have been dry and sunny after all, see “The Weather on Alice in Wonderland Day, 4 July 1862,” by H. B. Doherty, of the Dublin Airport, in Weather, Vol. 23 (February 1968), pages 75–78. The article was called to my attention by reader William Mixon.
2. Note how this stanza puns three times with the word “little.” “Liddle” was pronounced to rhyme with “fiddle.”
3. Pilgrims to the Holy Land often wore wreaths of flowers on their heads. Reader Howard Lees sent this quotation from the Prologue of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where the Summoner is described as follows:
He wore a garland set upon his head
Large as the holly-bush upon a stake
Outside an ale house. . . .
Is not Carroll suggesting, Lees asks, “that Alice should store these tales in her childhood memory; the memory that, when she becomes an adult, is like a withered bunch of flowers plucked in the far-off land of childhood?”
A few years before writing this prefatory poem, Carroll photographed Alice with a wreath of flowers on her head. The picture is reproduced in Anne Clark’s Lewis Carroll: A Biography (Schocken, 1979), opposite page 65, and in Morton Cohen’s Reflections in a Looking Glass (Aperture, 1998), page 58.
CHAPTER I
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice1 was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”
So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled “ORANGE MARMALADE,” but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.2
“Well!” thought Alice to herself. “After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.)3
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—” (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) “—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)
Presently she began again. “I wonder if
I shall fall right through the earth!4 How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I think—” (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand? Or Australia?” (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy, curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.”
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” (Dinah was the cat.)5 “I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and was saying to her, very earnestly, “Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (The Annotated Books) Page 3
