American Telegram

by August Imholtz

The meeting, which had just taken place [actually five months ago but time is relative], between President B… and the officers and members of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America at Harvard University at the Tannenbaum home in nearby Chelmsford, resulted in an enjoyable and enlightening weekend for all.   Surrounded by Edward Lear’s natural history drawings and watercolors in Harvard’s Houghton Library on Saturday, April 21, 2012, we listened to the following lectures and presentations:

Dr. Selwyn Goodacre surveyed bibliographically the history of the print facsimiles of Alice’s Adventures under Ground;

Matt Demakos analyzed, in some detail with graphs, tables, and galley facsimiles, the textual  differences between Alice’s Adventures under Ground  and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland;

Mark Richards spoke on A Tangled Tale, that most Carrollian of all of Lewis Carroll’s works;
Alan Tannenbaum discussed the life and work of Arthur Burdett Frost, a semi-illustrator of A Tangled Tale;

Linda Cassady talked about and showed examples of the works of students at the University of Southern California who have won the annual Wonderland Award sponsored by Linda and her husband, Dr. George Cassady; and Christopher Morgan performed and explained a number of Carroll’s favorite magic tricks.
 
On the following morning, about 35 LCSNA members and guests were treated to a splendid lunch and tour of the Tannenbaum collection in their home, the older part of which dates from 1760, in Chelmsford, Massachusetts – about 35 miles north west of Boston.  Alan, climbing on a ladder in “Our Town” fashion in the center of the huge library room he and Alison had built onto their house, welcomed all and spent less than a minute per shelf  talking about the contents of the numerous bookshelves, the vitrines of figurines, the original Alice illustration art on the walls, and their collection of Alice in Wonderland pinball machines [the largest in the world].  A special exhibit case held some of the rarer items from the Tannenbaum Collection, including a delightful mirror writing inscribed card by Carroll in French –Sacré bleu!    
The guests spilled outside into the beautiful gardens [not without an Alice theme here or there] to continue conversations about all things Carroll – of which there seemed to be an unending supply.

August A. Imholtz, Jr.
August 27, 2012