Short stories from Birmingham readers in 162 countries so far
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Thousands of letters, photographs, illustrations and books from one of the world’s largest private Lewis Carroll collections have been donated to the UK out of the blue by an American philanthropist.
The extraordinary gift has been made to Christ Church, University of Oxford, where Carroll lectured and where he met Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which celebrates its 160th anniversary this year.
The collection includes more than 200 autograph letters, some of which are unpublished. There are a number to his “child-friends” and their parents, often sending riddles and jokes and copies of books. Some shed light on Carroll’s interest in the theatre.
There are also significant early editions, including the Alice books, The Hunting of the Snark and mathematical works. A copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground is inscribed to Alice’s mother by Carroll: “To her, whose children’s smiles fed the narrator’s fancy and were his rich reward: from the author. Xmas 1886.”
Carroll is considered one of the best amateur photographers of his day and the donation includes more than 100 of his photographs. The subjects include his friends and noted figures such as the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
An original electrotype of the frontispiece for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1887. Photograph: Christ Church/University of Oxford
Gabriel Sewell, the Christ Church college librarian, was taken aback when she received a brief email out of the blue from the US collector, who wrote: “I have decided to donate my Lewis Carroll collection. It includes more than 200 letters and 100 photographs plus many obscure printed items. Have you any interest?”
The email was sent by Jon A Lindseth, a retired American businessman and philanthropist, collector and scholar.
Sewell said: “It was a bit of a surprise. It’s an enormous collection. He’s incredibly generous. It would be impossible to make a collection like this nowadays without having an enormous amount of money.
“Such material doesn’t come on to the market these days, and not all at once. When we’ve tried to buy Carroll photographs, we’ve never had enough money. They get snapped up by people with much deeper pockets.”
She did not know Lindseth personally, but was aware that, over decades, he had built up a significant collection of material relating to Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, whose professional life was spent chiefly as an academic, a mathematician and logician at Christ Church.
A sketch by John Tenniel of Alice and the golden crown. Photograph: Christ Church/University of Oxford
Having excelled at the college as a student, he received its mathematical lectureship in 1855 and remained there in various capacities until his death in 1898. He even worked as its sub-librarian for a time.
His friendship with Henry Liddell, the college’s dean, and his family, inspired him to write his famous children’s story, first told to Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boating trip in 1862.
They were captivated by the little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure, and Alice asked him to write it down for her.
The unpublished correspondence reflects Carroll’s frustration over the misuse of his pen name. In 1890, he fired off a letter to the bookseller Messrs H Sotheran in Manchester, who had listed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Hunting of the Snark and Through the Looking-Glass in its catalogue, attributing them to “Carroll (Lewis, ie Rev CL Dodgson)”.
Carroll wrote that the bookseller had inserted his name “in connection with books of which he has never claimed or acknowledged the authorship, + which no one has any right to attribute to him: he will be much obliged if they will forbear from doing this for the future”.
There are also unpublished letters from Carroll to Edith Rix, whom he had tutored in logic. He reportedly regarded her as the cleverest woman he ever knew. She went on to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge and to work at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. In 1886, he wrote to her: “I would love to write you a chatty letter, in answer to 2 or 3 of yours: but I’ve no time for this post, + won’t keep you longer waiting for answers to your mathematical questions …”
Sewell said: “It is [at Christ Church] that [Carroll] produced the hundreds of letters, photographs and sketches that now return home as part of the remarkable collection expertly curated by Jon Lindseth.”
Lindseth is a noted Carroll scholar, whose publications include Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll’s Masterpiece. He has also written for the journals of the Lewis Carroll Society and curated two Carroll exhibitions.
Christ Church has long possessed one of the foremost Carroll archives. Sewell said: “With this unparalleled donation from Lindseth, however, there can be no doubt that the college is now the pre-eminent institutional collection of Carroll material in the UK.”
She added: “[Lindseth] was very firm that he wanted it to come to the UK and he wanted it to be in Christ Church, where Carroll lived and worked … No other institution in the UK has a particularly big Carroll collection. All the big collections are in the States, and he wanted to remedy that.”
Cataloguing and digitisation of the Lindseth Lewis Carroll collection has only just begun, but an exhibition displaying some of the most exceptional items is in Christ Church’s historic upper library until 17 April – the first time the collection has been displayed in the UK.
from the Guardian today.
My Russian translations had a peak last night, I hope I corrupt you enough to remove Putin
I’m a firm believer in prayer, I have Tinnitus and my Rosary saves me, so I pray a fair bit
I've updated this 15th Sept 2024 I'm Michael Casey from Birmingham England, the fat silver haired writer in shades. Beware of Others with the EXACT SAME NAME, they are not me, and would not want to be me ... use Google UK to find me, otherwise Posh Americans pop up I've done loads of writing, about 3,000,000 Words worth over 36years now But before I started to write, I LISTENED to BBC Radio 4 for 20 years, from the age of 10 or younger Frank Brown our lodger, went back to County Tyrone and he gifted us his Bush Radio. He'd be nearly 102 now if he is still alive, so say a prayer for him 56 years in love with words, and I still look so dashing. I have a picture in the attic, just like Dorian Gray I've also had an interest in Politics for 56 years with my dad heckling the tv and Politicians. I almost immediately had a hit, a play called Shoplife was accepted but not finally produced by a Theatre. The Kenneth More Theatre, so thank them for sparing you all. This was back in 1989 yes, 35 years ago, the play was written in 1988. So since then I'm more than good enough, as a writer. Anything else..... I also ignore those who just cannot write, pick your own candidate I tend to write Comedy as I'd rather make you laugh than cry I have written over 2000 short pieces of writing, yes 2000 " (c) by Michael Casey" If you include "chats" 5000 samples, all told, the chats do NOT go into my books when I compile them. My first book ,a full length comedy/drama is The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker You can read translations of it here on this site Up to 20 different languages/translations have been read on the same day via this site, here on Wordpress look fo Translations Galore page, and more And in over 167 Countries world wide too so you have no excuse, find your own language and read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker or Quick Stories or any other of the books in Translation on my Wordpress This proves to me that the humour does travel I have readers in over 167 countries now, just to repeat myself From Nepal to American Samoa and all places North South East and West Or its just a hit man on the run, or whatever Unknown Region Means It may also mean that only non English Speakers like my stuff Coverage but lacking penetration as marketing folks might say I did get 21,000 readers in 3 weeks for the Polish version of In Search of an Indian Princess. which is basically the final 3 chapters of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker all by word of mouth. And 50,000 plus in Christmas week 2021 If you add up all the downloads from my Wordpress + 13,000 when somebody stole the file. I have had more copies than Boris Johnson's Churchill book distributed. Maybe 40,000 copies . Not made a penny from it, free downloads in multiple languages. Reverse Logic, if the world knows me, eventually somebody will pay me But in reality I'll be dead first, and then just 2 pennies to pay the ferryman is enough I've cut the Plaudits, you can read/decide for yourself As for my life, I was born in the shadow of a Brewery, I was a computer operator for a market research company into alcohol sales, 21 years altogether, StatsMR Call centre guy, like everybody once in their life I was also a Trainee Betting Shop Manager I was a concierge and 10 other roles at Crowne Plaza NEC Birmingham for 3 years. Spent 3 years at Pinsent Masons Law firm in Birmingham I even hid a copy of my comic novel "BBU" in the Law Library at Pinsent Masons, well just for a day.. I did a few other jobs too, working life in reverse so to speak and I was an Esol English teacher in an Islamic school, for a year, I knew I could teach. I got Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary on the external assessment, yes really And I asked them to pray for me at least once a day beside which I've had a Shanghai connection for 20+ years now, including 2 bilingual daughters and being a hausfrau a long time too, I'm a great dad, as I've had lots of time with my daughters I can always make somebody talk or laugh I believe my short stories could be used to teach English, just package them up correctly or App them Or a Tale a Day from Michael, a story telling App What else, I was brawn and brains, I used to be as strong as an Ox, now I just smell like one We have a cat called Totoro, my daughters wanted a pet I said they could have a dog if I died , or a cat if I had a heart attack. A few weeks after that in Jan 2015 I had an Unplanned Quadruple Heart Bypass , it was supposed to be a triple but it ended up a Quadruple, 33% extra free so to speak. Now with an add on Hernia, the size of your fist, pushing through my bypass scar, it hurts when I laugh, so don't make me laugh I also have arthritis and other hindrances that hobble my body and give me pain galore. But my mind is free, though having read my stories you may wish I didn't bother But I'll ignore you, and carry on regardless. I do get heckled by my own Tinnitus these past 5 years+, so I have music on all night long to drown it out. I sleep with Miley, Taylor, Eric Clapton and Will Young, maybe I should buy a bigger bed, or just get a better mattress. Tinnitus is a curse, just trust me I know, each day I wake up, Tinnitus SCREAMS at me for a full hour till it calms down or not at all, a merry go around of noise That's the end of the tidy version of my life To finish here's the list of my 20 books, so far:- 1.The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker 2.Shoplife 3.Essays and Plays 4.Blogs 2011 5.300 and Not OUT 6.Shorts 2013 7.More Shorts 2014 8.Quick Stories 9.Still Alive 2015 10.Undiscovered Words 2016 11.Still Smiling 2017 12.Altogether Now 13.New Horizons 14.14 Up 15.15 Down 16.Sweet Sixteen 17. 17 Again 18. 18 New Views 19. The Final Cut of the 19th Hole 20. 2020 Words 21. Fresh Fields, i decided was a better title, when the USA election is over I'll launch it 96,000 words so far I write bullet point stuff mainly now as Tinnitus stops me from getting in the zone to write, story stories. (c) by Michael Casey stuff though my bullet points are better than some "writers" discuss, miaow. That's why I dream of a speed typist, so I could dictate from the sofa https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC to buy ebooks Loads of Korean and Arabic translations downloaded from my Wordpress, 1000s of them Quick Stories in Korean is a big hit. Maybe Kim in North Korea should read my books, instead of wasting his countries resources on what? Just keeping one person in power, him? Instead of joining the real world and opening a string on golf courses. That way we could get rid of Trump too. Into the sunset, as they play golf. Tears for a Butcher will be the sequel to BBU, and it too will be 600pages, however I really need a speed typist to put it down, while I sit and dictate like Barbara Cartland, and hopefully my speed typist would be impressed. we'd marry have half Korean kids, and form a Kpop band with our 4 new kids, with me as manager. my 2 daughters are at University now, so if you finally pay me, I can pass it on to them And yes this is more for my bucket list, as Tinnitus keeps me awake too much, 6 months of not sleeping till dawn is really killing me, it is the worse thing in my life ever, and I've had far to many horrible things. That's why I go the other direction and write comedy Michael Casey aka the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England https://2.gravatar.com/avatar/efda2dca0de5b9269191b7c8b0102473?s=400&d=mm View all posts by michaelgcasey
