Rhyme? And Reason? -
Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], Arthur B. Frost, Henry Holiday (Illustrators)
1884 - Macmillan and Co., New York - First American Edition
A handsomely bound collection of Lewis Carroll’s poems, including many from his poetry collections The Hunting of the Snark and Phantasmagoria. Accompanied by 65 illustrations by the wonderful and zany artist, Arthur B. Frost, and nine by Henry Holiday.
Includes topics and themes such as the practicalities of 19th century ghost-hunting and instructions on cheering up recently widowed young women. These imaginative verses are the perfect antidote for boredom for anyone aged five to a hundred-and-five. Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), which he adopted when publishing his famous children’s novels and nonsense verse. The son of a Cheshire parson, Dodgson grew up in a large family which enjoyed composing magazines and putting on plays. In 1851, he went to Christ Church, Oxford. By 1855, he was a fellow (which necessitated celibacy), lecturing in mathematics. He occupied a tower in the college for the rest of his life. He wrote many books on mathematics and logic, and enjoyed inventing puzzles and games and playing croquet.
His love of paradox and nonsense and his fondness for small children led to the writing of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a story which he began while rowing Lorina, Alice, and Edith, the three small daughters of the College Dean H G Liddell, up the Thames for a picnic near Binsey. A sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, appeared in 1871. Interviewed when she was old, Alice remembered him as tall and slender, with blue/grey eyes, longish hair, and ‘carrying himself upright, almost more than upright, as if he had swallowed a poker’. He published Phantasmagoria and Other Poems in 1869, The Hunting of the Snark in 1876 and Sylvie and Bruno in 1889.
Dodgson wrote and received ‘wheelbarrows full’ of letters (a letter register he started in his late 20s and kept for the rest of his life records more than 98,000 sent and received). Many of these were on religious and political issues while others were full of light-hearted nonsense. He excelled in artfully staged photographs, many of children in costumes and others of friends, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He died, aged 65, of pneumonia.
Arthur B Frost was an artist born in Philadelphia in 1851. Known for his graphic art and cartoons, and considered a leading authority in the Golden Age of Illustration. He was born colourblind, which hindered his ability to some degree, though subsequently improved his mastery of greyscale technique.
Henry James Holiday (1839=1927) was a a painter, illustrator and stained glass artist born in London. ‘As an illustrator, Holiday’s fame rests on the drawings of for Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, 1876, which show a weird intensity of detail which is among the most disturbing aspects of Victorian literature.’
References: British Library. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Houfe, The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914, 342.
Octavo (binding size 18.8x13.3cm) pp. [2] xii 214 [9 (publisher’s advertisements)] [7].
xii 214 [1] [1 publisher’s advertisements]. Bound in full red morocco, spine six compartments with gilt decoration, rule and lettering, boards with single gilt filet border, marbled endpapers. Condition: Ref: 112580 Price: HK$ 5,000
Includes topics and themes such as the practicalities of 19th century ghost-hunting and instructions on cheering up recently widowed young women. These imaginative verses are the perfect antidote for boredom for anyone aged five to a hundred-and-five. Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), which he adopted when publishing his famous children’s novels and nonsense verse. The son of a Cheshire parson, Dodgson grew up in a large family which enjoyed composing magazines and putting on plays. In 1851, he went to Christ Church, Oxford. By 1855, he was a fellow (which necessitated celibacy), lecturing in mathematics. He occupied a tower in the college for the rest of his life. He wrote many books on mathematics and logic, and enjoyed inventing puzzles and games and playing croquet.
His love of paradox and nonsense and his fondness for small children led to the writing of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a story which he began while rowing Lorina, Alice, and Edith, the three small daughters of the College Dean H G Liddell, up the Thames for a picnic near Binsey. A sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, appeared in 1871. Interviewed when she was old, Alice remembered him as tall and slender, with blue/grey eyes, longish hair, and ‘carrying himself upright, almost more than upright, as if he had swallowed a poker’. He published Phantasmagoria and Other Poems in 1869, The Hunting of the Snark in 1876 and Sylvie and Bruno in 1889.
Dodgson wrote and received ‘wheelbarrows full’ of letters (a letter register he started in his late 20s and kept for the rest of his life records more than 98,000 sent and received). Many of these were on religious and political issues while others were full of light-hearted nonsense. He excelled in artfully staged photographs, many of children in costumes and others of friends, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He died, aged 65, of pneumonia.
Arthur B Frost was an artist born in Philadelphia in 1851. Known for his graphic art and cartoons, and considered a leading authority in the Golden Age of Illustration. He was born colourblind, which hindered his ability to some degree, though subsequently improved his mastery of greyscale technique.
Henry James Holiday (1839=1927) was a a painter, illustrator and stained glass artist born in London. ‘As an illustrator, Holiday’s fame rests on the drawings of for Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, 1876, which show a weird intensity of detail which is among the most disturbing aspects of Victorian literature.’
References: British Library. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Houfe, The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914, 342.
Octavo (binding size 18.8x13.3cm) pp. [2] xii 214 [9 (publisher’s advertisements)] [7].
xii 214 [1] [1 publisher’s advertisements]. Bound in full red morocco, spine six compartments with gilt decoration, rule and lettering, boards with single gilt filet border, marbled endpapers. Condition: Ref: 112580 Price: HK$ 5,000