Lewis Carrol

I love Lewis Carrol, or Charles Dodgson if you go by his real name. He was actually the subject of my grade twelve history paper. The man was just so fascinating! Not only did he write one of the most famous stories of all time, he was a mathematician who taught at Oxford, one of the best amateur photographers in his day, and a great friend to children. Dodgson's diversity and imagination astounds me.

     Early Life

Charles Dodgson was born January 27, 1832 as the third child (first son) of what would be a family of thirteen. His father was a parson, and Charles grew up in a loving, supportive home. As a child, he loved entertaining his siblings with games, puzzles, and his own little newspaper. Dodgson's mathematical mind, like his father's, was very developed, so in 1851 he enrolled in Oxford at Christ Church college. After his initial schooling, he received the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship which would be his career for the next 26 years.

     Writing Career

Dodgson had published several books about mathematics and logic under his given name, but beneath that analytical mind lay a great imagination. He began writing poems and short stories for newspapers under pseudonyms. The very first work to be published under the name that would be ever-linked to his fame was a poem titled "Solitude" that appeared in a magazine. But it was not until he met Henry Liddell and his family, including his daughter Alice, that the great world of Wonderland would come to be.

     Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Dodgson was a quiet, slightly odd man. He was always a child at heart, and enjoyed spending time with children more than adults, particularly little girls. Now, do not say anything improper about these relationships, for those rumours are complete nonsense. Dodgson's friendships with children were just that: friendships. Even in his photography, which mainly contained photos of young girls, he always consulted the mothers and ensured that the children did nothing that made them uncomfortable. The art of nude child photography was popular in the day, and Dodgson would always provide mothers with the photos, or burn them if they were unwanted. So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about Alice Liddell.

Alice, along with her elder sister Lorina and her little sister Edith, were great friends with Charles. One day, while he accompanied the Liddells on a riverboat ride, he saw that the girls were extremely bored. To entertain them, he began telling the story of "Alice's Adventures Underground". The children loved the story, especially Alice, who begged for Dodgson to write it down. After a great deal of pleading, Dodgson wrote out the story, including some little illustrations of his own, and presented it to Alice. Much later, a publishing friend of Dodgson's came across the little manuscript and encouraged him to publish it. The rest, you might say, is history. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1865 and has been a best-seller ever since.

Charles Dodgson wasn't just an imaginative author. He was a great friend to those around him, an ingenious scholar and lecturer, as well as an artistic photographer. Even though he is most remembered for his brilliant masterpiece under the name Carrol, there is so much more we should appreciate about his life. Dodgson succumbed to pneumonia on January 14, 1898, but he lives on through the adventures of a little girl with a great imagination.

   

  Sources

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/bio1.html

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: A Fantastical Tale

I've recently become fascinated by this story. Its nonsensical plot is both brilliant and slightly crazy. What I love most is that the story is so true to the unpredictibly wild mind of a child. Lewis Carrol does a brilliant job of creating the vast, complicated and utterly mad world of Wonderland.

     A Brief Synopsis

Alice is lazily sitting beneath a tree on a hot summer morning when she sees a white rabbit in a waistcoat running by. What captures her attention is not the waistcoat as you would imagine, but the pocket watch her pulls out of it. Curiosity sufficiently peaked, Alice races after the rabbit, following it down a rabbit hole. To her surprise, she begins to fall for a very, very long time. She eventually reaches the bottom to find a long hall and a glass table. After attempting to get through a very small door to a beautiful garden (an attempt that involves quite a bit of growing and shrinking), Alice finds herself struggling to stay afloat in a sea of her own tears. That is when her adventures begin.

I won't describe in detail everything Alice goes through, for that would take an awfully long time. Let’s just say that in her adventure, Alice participates in a Caucus-race, plays fetch with an enormous puppy, talks with a hookah-smoking caterpillar, meets a rude duchess, her pepper-crazed cook, her baby (that turns into a pig), and their grinning Cheshire cat (who has a habit of disappearing). She also attends a tea party hosted by the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Doormouse (who are all quite off their rockers), plays a curious game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts, and hears the history of the Mock Turtle, as well as going through a great deal of growing and shrinking.

In the end, she is called to witness a very strange trial in which nearly everyone she has met are called as witnesses. Unfortunately, she begins to grow, and is attacked by a pack of card-soldiers. It is then that Alice wakes up.

     My Thoughts

I love this story. It's just so...different. There seems to be no particular plot or theme, it is just a very peculiar adventure. The nonsense of the story is ingenious. I know that the development of this story was not a huge thought-out process (you'll learn about that in my next post!), but the way it perfectly interprets the mind of a child astounds me.

Now, this is a very, very well-known story. I thought I knew the full story, but it turns out I had been relying on an abridged copy, so I was excited to read the full text for the first time. I really enjoyed the story (as you might be able to tell). It really captivates you, for new and completely un-related things happen one after the other. It is an ideal story for the wandering mind of a child.

I loved Alice. She is the absolute perfect main character for this story. She is not just a girl on an adventure. Alice is the strangest, most peculiar girl you will ever meet. The way she approaches all these happenings, and even just her thought process is just...odd. For example, at one point when she grows very large and cannot see her feet, she worries about who will look after them and put socks on an such. She then decides that she'll send them a new pair of boots each Christmas to the address:
     ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
     HEARTHRUG,
     NEAR THE FENDER,
     (WITH ALICE'S LOVE).
 Isn't she just hilarious? I laughed so much reading this book.

I read once that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the second most-quoted book next to the bible, and I wasn't too surprised. The writing style is scattered and absurd, but there is just so many interesting happenings and little tidbits hidden in the crazy "plot". I don't believe Wonderland to be the dark, frightening place that Tim Burton made it out to be. The way I interpret the land is a fantastical, nonsensical place with people who live in quite a different way than we do. I really enjoyed visiting, but I don't think I'd like to live there:)

Illustrations are from the original book and are done by Sir John Tennial

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodson Burnett is one of the world's most famous early female authors. Her books have been made into countless movie adaptations and have enthralled children for over a century. Whether you are reading about Sara Crewe, Cedric Errol, or Mary Lennox, you are instantly transported to their world and living alongside them. Here's to an amazing storyteller.

     Early Life

Frances Eliza Hodgson was born November 24, 1849 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England. Her father died when she was three and her mother Eliza took over his ironmongery. As a little girl, Frances loved writing little stories in notebooks and telling tales to anyone who would listen. When she was sixteen, the ironmongery went bankrupt, and Eliza decided take the family to join her brother in America. So in 1865 Frances, along with her mother, two older brothers and two younger sisters,  
moved to Knoxville Tennesse.

     Writing Career

 Frances was always making up stories, so it was natural that when her family needed some extra finnancial support she began writing to help pay the bills. Some of her first stories such as "Miss Caruthers' Engagement" appeared in Godey’s Lady’s Book, a magazine for women, in 1868. By the time her mother died and the family's finnancial burden was put almost entirely on Frances' shoulders, she was earning a regular income from her writings. She married Swann Burnett in 1873 and would have two sons Lionel and Vivian. Beginning in 1876 with The Lass O’Lowries Frances published a series of novels and even co-wrote a play. None of her works however, recieved critical acclaim until Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886. She went on to write her most famous books A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911).

     The Secret Garden

Ever since she was a little girl living in England, Frances loved gardens. Whenever possible, she would find a spot of nature and play, read, or write. It's no surprise then that one of her most famous novels would take place in a garden. The particular garden in which the story of Mary, Dickon, and Colin was written was the walled garden at her home, Maytham Hall. When she first moved to Maytham, the garden was neglected and overgrown. Frances soon added roses and grasses to make it alive once again.

Various people in her life added inspiration to Frances' later works. As a girl, Frances had a friend named Emma who spoke with a broad Lancashire accent. Frances was entranced by the sounds and words of this different dialect. This would inspire her to use these in her books, which is very apparent in The Secret Garden.



With a legacy of over fifty books as well as numerous plays, short stories, and poems behind her, Frances Hodgson Burnett died on October 29, 1924. She is not gone though, for she will always be remembered through her timeless tales, especially that of Miss Mary Lennox.






     Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Hodgson_Burnett
http://www.online-literature.com/burnett/
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2041.Frances_Hodgson_Burnett
Collins, Carolyn and Eriksson, Christina Inside the Secret Garden. New York: HarperCollins, 2001

The Secret Garden: A Secret that Needs to be Shared

I decided to start this blog with a review of my absolute favourite book in the world, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

     A Brief Synopsis  

Mary Lennox is a miserable, ugly, spoiled girl living in India with parents who don't care about her and servants who are too terrified to discipline her. When she is orphaned due to an outbreak of cholera, she is sent to England to live in the home of her wealthy widower uncle at Misselthwaite Manor, a huge estate on the edge of the British moor. She is cared for by Martha, a Yorkshire girl who lives across the moor with her 11 siblings. Mary is intrigued by stories of Martha's family, especially her brother Dickon, who makes friends with the animals on the moor and knows nearly everything about nature. Mary was never interested in anything before, so this was "the dawning of a healthy sentiment" (Burnett 33).

There was very little to do around the manor, so Mary spent her time wandering the gardens surrounding the house. Martha had told her the story of a garden that had been locked away for a decade because it had belonged to Mrs. Craven, and this fascinated her (another new emotion). So Mary set out to find the garden. The way in which she finds the garden is what I love about this book. There isn't any magic in the traditional sense; there are no fairies or witches or genies, but you can't help but see magic in the story. A robin shows Mary where the key to the hidden garden is buried, and it is a gust of wind that reveals the door hidden behind the ivy. The descriptions of the incredible surroundings in this book are breathtaking. Mary steps into the garden and finds it to be "the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place anyone could imagine" and marvels at "how still it is!"(79). She is worried that nothing will every grow in there, but slowly gets to work, trying remove tangled grasses from tiny little buds.

There is so much more that happens after Mary's initial discovery. Dickon arrives to make a delivery and Mary realizes that if he can be trusted by the animals to keep the secrets of their nests and burrows, he can be trusted to hide the whereabouts of a certain hidden garden. Together they begin to revive the barren land.

One night, Mary hears screams and sobs ringing through the old manor. She discovers that she has a cousin named Colin hidden away in the house. He is a sickly, wretched boy who is just as spoiled and horrible as Mary was before the garden began to change her. Colin believes his father hates him and that's why he is always travaling. Despite his illness and rudeness, Mary befriends her cousin and tells him her secret. Colin is drawn to the garden as Mary was, and decides that, if Dickon would push him in his chair, he would like to see it. The magic of the garden transforms Colin. He becomes stronger and healthier and is able to walk and run and play. One day, as he's running out of the garden, he crashes into a man. It's Mr. Craven, shocked to see his boy running around, perfectly healed. The story ends with the servants staring in disbelief as "across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. And by his, side with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire--Master Colin!" (279).

     My Thoughts

I love this book. I really, really love this book. The story is one of  growth and renewal through the most lovely medium possible: a british garden. I love nature, so it's natural (ha ha) that I would be intrigued be this story. I love how Burnett uses such incredible imagery in her descriptions. You can tell that she truly loves nature and the world around her. I cannot help but see the gardens as she describes them. And of course, the beautiful illustrations don't hurt. These pictures I've put up are by Inga Moore, and are the same illustrations in my copy. I love the soft colours and texture she uses. I'm a big fan of impressionism, and I think it is the perfect style to capture a magical secret garden.

Something curiously fun about Burnett's writing was her depiction of the Yorkshire accent. Many characters such as Martha and Dickon speak with a broad accent, and Burnett put a lot of effort into giving the reader a real sense of what the accent sounds like. For example, when she first arrives, the footman says to the housekeeper who brought Mary to the manor says "I see tha's got back...an' tha's browt th' young un' with thee" (21). Burnett's diction, while a bit hard to understand at first, allows the reader to hear the accent easily in their head. I found this interesting dialect helpful and fun.

There was something I didn't particularly enjoy about Burnett's story. The three children believe in the magic of the garden, but Colin is the deepest believer. He tries to have long times of meditation and chanting while the children sit in a circle in the garden. I thought it was a bit weird, and I feel it didn't match the ethereal, natural feel of the story so far. It was more deep and somber.

I love The Secret Garden. Whenever I read it, I'm filled with peace and a deep happiness. I can't help but love Mary as she grows from a horrible, miserable girl to a happy, beautiful child. Burnett has accomplished what every author aspires to: she created characters that I fell in love with and a place that I want to live in more than anywhere else. Every time I read this book, I'm walking alongside Mary as she steps into a magical, beautiful garden. There's no place I'd rather be.

Welcome back to Neverland!

I love reading. I always have. I read all sorts of books from all genres, but I've always had difficulty with "old books". You know, stuff like Dickens and Austen. These are classics that I'd love to read, but I struggle with the writting style. Then I discovered classic children's literature. You may be thinking "Hey, those are nothing like the real classics!", and you may be right. But I feel a real connection to these works, and who knows, maybe they'll be my gateway into more "grown-up" literature.

The purpose of this blog is to share with you, my readers, the wonder of these classics. I hope to help you, whether it be to discover or rediscover these stories. I'll try to focus on books written in the late 19th and early 20th century, but some may come before and after. Each week I will read a book and write up two posts: one will contain a brief synopsis of the story as well as some personal notes concerning the book, while the other will have a biography of the author and some of the process involved in writing that particular book.

I really hope you'll enjoy coming back to Neverland with me as we enjoy or re-enjoy these fantastical classic children's books. I know I will:)