Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense

by Lewis Carroll

  A Bachanalian Ode

  This second poem from The Three T’s concerns a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion to be given in Christ Church Cathedral. LC objected on two grounds: that a charge was to be made whereas he believed that the cathedral as a place of worship must be open to all, and because, though the music was religious, he did not approve of the cathedral being a place of entertainment.

  [The Wine Committee]

  First published (with the following two poems) Twelve Months in a Curatorship By One Who has Tried It (1884).

  [“I love my love with a T”]

  This poem, the following one and the prose pamphlet in which they appear express the irritations LC felt in his role as Curator of the Common Room during his first year in office (1884), in particular the problems of dealing with other committee members. For first publication, see note to “[The Wine Committee]” above.

  [“He took a second-story flat”]

  LC took an apartment at 6 Brewer Street to supplement his rooms in college, probably in 1890. In a letter to his niece Edith, 28 February 1890, he tells her that “one is so cramped in one’s tiny College rooms; but, by having a house in Brewer Street as well, one really has enough room to swing a cat” (Letters, ii, 1071).

  Memoria Technica

  According to his nephew Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, LC had a “wonderfully good memory except for faces and dates” (Collingwood, pp. 268–9). Partly in order to compensate for this, in 1877 he devised a system for recalling dates, but also for “logarithms of all primes under 100”, “pi to 71 decimal places”, the specific gravity of metals, foundation of colleges and other facts. His system built on that of Dr Richard Grey (1730). Being a skilled and addicted rhymester, LC produced rhymed couplets to represent the equivalent in letters of the numbers to be recollected. See Introduction and Letters, i, 790. Handbook, p. 97 has the clearest explanation of the scheme: “dates are fixed in the memory by the last letters of the fact to be dated being altered into letters representing numbers. Dodgson represents 1–9,0 by two alternative consonants each, and fills in with vowels to make a word. Thus the Discovery of America was in 1492. The 1 may be disregarded; 4,9,2 can be represented by f,n,d (or q,g,w): so you compose a rhyme, ‘Columbus sailed the world around / Until America was FOUND.’ ”

  The “Memoria Technica” (pp. 232–3) are dated 16 October 1894: see Diaries, ix, 177–8 note 298. Other examples remind LC of the date of the foundation of colleges, for example:

  You may ring Big Tom if you please.

  We only charge very small fees. [1546, l,f,s]

  Christ Church.

  They must have a bevel

  To keep them so level. [1555, l,v,l]

  Based on the level lawns of St John’s College.

  The Hunting of the Snark (1876)

  In the Preface Carroll remarks that “this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock”, and he includes the nonce words “beamish” (Fit 3), “uffish” and “galumphing” (Fit 4), “Jubjub” (Fits 4 and 5), “outgrabe” (Fit 5), “Bandersnatch”, “frumious” and “mimsiest” (Fit 7) from it.

  [“Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task”]

  This dedicatory poem is addressed to Gertrude Chataway, then aged nine. On 24 October 1875, LC had the idea of suggesting a Christmas publication for the Snark though in the event the poem was not published until April 1876. That same day he thought of “writing an acrostic on Gertrude Chataway … and did the same night” (Diaries, vi, 421, 427). The initial letters of each line spell her name and, with a further ingenious twist, the syllables of her name form the opening of each stanza: Girt, Rude, Chat, Away.

  Fit the First

  13. A Billiard-marker: “All billiard-players know the really good marker, who, so to speak, ‘fields’ for us round the table, who invariably puts the balls ready in the bottom pockets when put in previously at pool, who is always at hand with a lighted spill directly we have filled our pipes or opened our cigar-case, whose friendly hand assists us at leaving in that awful struggle with our great coat” (Billiard News, 25 December 1875).

  Fit the Second

  25. the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder: In his Preface, LC provides this useful explanation:

  The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it – he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand – so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm,” had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.” So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

  73. bathing-machines: Cabins for changing into swimwear.

  Fit the Fourth

  37. England expects: “England expects every man to do his duty”: Admiral Nelson’s message to the fleet just before he was killed.

  Fit the Fifth

  61–8. Taking Three as the subject to reason about … perfectly true: The calculation remains true for any number.

  When the Butcher … tries to convince the Beaver that 2 plus 1 is 3, he adopts a procedure that starts with 3 and ends with 3. It is not apparent, unless you write an algebraic expression for the operations, that the process must end with the same number you start with. The algebraic expression is:

  (This expression simplifies to x) …

  (Gardner, Universe, p. 10)

  Fit the Sixth

  9. a shadowy Court: A law court scene as chaotic as the scene at the end of Wonderland but more preoccupied with the niceties of legal language: e.g. “never indebted” (32) or “nil debet” and “transportation” (57): the common penalty of sending criminals to colonies far off had already ceased when LC was writing.

  Poems for Friends, including acrostics, riddles, “charades” and a cipher-poem

  Particularly in his later years many of LC’s verses were addressed to people he knew and liked. In this section are gathered two prologues he wrote for amateur performances by his friends of plays by other people, a poem emerging from a friend’s dream experience, birthday verses and a good many acrostics, double-acrostics, “charades” and riddles. Some of these were written on the flyleaves of books he was giving as a present, while many of them appear in letters to young friends.

  [Two Prologues]

  LC’s Diaries are full of visits to the theatre, indeed it has been calculated that over the span of forty years he visited the theatre 479 times, seeing 686 plays. (See note on “Prologue to ‘La Guida di Bragia’ ”.) His reluctance to take full orders as a cleric has been linked with his desire to continue theatre-going, an entertainment disapproved by the Bishop of Oxford. LC was a great admirer of the distinguished actress Ellen Terry and her actress sisters Kate and Marion, and became good friends with the whole family. See also “The Lyceum”, “To M. A. B.”, “[‘Breathes there the man with soul so dead’]” and “Four Riddles: II”.

  [Prologue to “The Loan of a Lover”]

  The Loan of a Lover was a musical comedy by James Robinson Planché, associated with the acting of Madame Vestris. This prologue was specially written by LC for an amateur performance by the Hatch family in November 1871.

  47. “Whitebait at Greenwich”: A farce by J. Morton. Victorian theatres habitually included several theatrical items in one evening’s entertainment.

  [Prologue to “Checkmate”]

  Checkmate was a comedy by Andrew Halliday. The prologue was specially written by LC
for a performance by the Hatch family, February 1873.

  [Some poems to Colleagues and Friends]

  [A Request]

  Composed 5 March 1872. Augustus Harcourt (2) was a friend and colleague of LC at Christ Church. He was the Lee’s Reader in Chemistry and a Fellow of the Royal Society, which may help to explain his requested assistance in illuminating LC’s darkroom. See Letters, i, 475.

  [Winter Birthday]

  A birthday poem for LC’s friend Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet, who was a mathematician and physicist, Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford and an accomplished musician. The syncopated lines suggest a sneeze or a shiver (Grace Lawless Lee, The Story of the Bosanquets (Canterbury: Phillimore, 1966), p. 84).

  Dreamland

  LC’s friend Charles Hutchinson had a dream during which he saw heroes of old passing by, each of whom turned to look at him. The dream was accompanied by a melody for a four-line stanza that Hutchinson still heard on waking. LC wrote the poem to fit the music and the vision that Hutchinson had experienced.

  First published Oxford University Press in 1882 and Aunt Judy’s Magazine, i (n.s.), July 1882, p. 547.

  To “Hallie”

  Clara Halyburton Cunnynghame and her family lived in Ripon where LC’s family lived for some time. He accompanied the poem when Haly, or Hally or Hallie, was 16 with the message: “Dedicated with profound respect, to Miss Clara Hallyburton [sic] Cunnynghame from her humble Servant … The Author, In remembrance of January 1868” (see Letters, i, 110). Her younger sister Maggie (Margaret) was also a recipient of Carroll’s verses.

  [“My dear Christie”]

  The correspondent has been identified by Edward Wakeling: “Christie is almost certainly Sophia Christiana ‘Christie’ Taylor (b. 1859), daughter of Henry Sharp Taylor (1817–1896), doctor at Guildford, and his wife, Sophia Russel (b. 1820)” (private communication).

  6. “pour rire”: Entertainment (French). Morton Cohen suggests a date of October 1869 because of a postscript reference to Ina Watson (see Letters, i, 141).

  [Letter to Maggie Cunnynghame]

  LC wrote out this letter on 30 January 1868 as prose, but the rhyming words are ingeniously concealed in the sentences throughout and were there as a riddle for Maggie to solve. Hatch (pp. 41–5) has set it out as a poem as given here. For Maggie, see note to “To ‘Hallie’ ”.

  To Three Puzzled Little Girls, From the Author

  [To the three Misses Drury 1]

  On 2 August 1869 LC met the Drury family on a train, an encounter that began an enduring friendship. This poem was inscribed in a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that he sent them the next day. The daughters were Minnie, Ella and Emmie (Mary, Isabella, Emily). After Dodgson’s death, Minnie and her daughter Audrey Fuller were largely responsible for establishing by subscription the Alice in Wonderland Cot at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Letters, i, 136 note 2).

  [To the three Misses Drury 2]

  LC wrote this on the flyleaf of Phantasmagoria for the three sisters, after they had together visited German Reed’s theatrical entertainment where the triple bill was Happy Arcadia, All Abroad and Very Catching (Collingwood, p. 419).

  [To the three Misses Drury 3]

  Written 11 January 1872, in a copy of Looking-Glass inscribed to the three sisters.

  [“ ‘No mind!’ the little maiden cried”]

  Sent on 17 December 1870, with a teasing letter to Janet Merriman, daughter of Henry G. Merriman, headmaster of the Royal Grammar School at Guildford, after LC had taken a photograph of her (Letters, i, 158–9).

  To Miss Mary Watson

  The three Watson girls, Ina, Hartie and Mary (Georgina, Harriet, Mary) inspired many of LC’s most playful and inventive photographs, puzzles and poems from 1869. He concocted a portmanteau name for them, Harmarina, and visited the family frequently over twenty years.

  [Two Poems to Rachel Daniel]

  I [“Oh pudgy podgy pup”]

  II [“What hand may wreathe thy natal crown”]

  LC first offered the playful “Oh pudgy podgy pup” when invited in November 1880 (Letters, i, 392–3) to contribute to a set of seventeen poems for the arrival of Rachel, first daughter of Charles Daniel, founder of the Daniel Press. He remarked parenthetically in that letter, “I hate babies, but that is irrelevant.” He was later persuaded to compose the more florid rhyme [“What hand may wreathe thy natal crown”], which was published in The Garland of Rachel, printed at the private press of H. Daniel, Oxford (1881), and accompanied by a Latin metrical version of his composition by Sir Richard Harington.

  The Lyceum

  LC presented the poem to Agnes Georgina Hull, written 25 March 1881, in a mock-tattered form with some rhyme words missing: “Ellen Terry” (l. 12) and all the repeats of “the Lyceum” (ll. 8, 16, 24; l. 8 could also be “per diem”). Agnes was by this time fourteen years old and strains were emerging in their relationship. See also note to “[‘Around my lonely hearth to-night’]”.

  LC starts the letter with a joke revision of Tennyson’s lines that run

  It is the miller’s daughter,

  And she is grown so dear, so dear

  He claims to have found an original manuscript of Tennyson’s poem that has a different title:

  “The first title was ‘How an Elderly Person took a Young Person to the Play, but could not get her away again.’ And he had begun it in quite a different metre:

  Two went one day

  To visit the play:

  One came away:

  The other would stay.

  And then he seems to have changed his mind, and written it as I have given it to you.’

  “Dear” ceases to mean “affection and comes to mean “expense” in LC’s somewhat irascible version of the poem.

  9. “The Cup”: A favourite vehicle for Ellen Terry’s acting partner and manager Henry Irving.

  17. Two Brothers: “The [Two] Corsican Brothers” was one of the many stage adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’s novella (1844).

  [“Something fails”]

  Written to Edith Blakemore, 1 February 1881. She has sent LC scales for his birthday which still haven’t arrived; are they “medicine-scales”, “scales to practice on the pianoforte” or “a fish” See Hatch, p. 159.

  [Letter to Violet Dodgson]

  Another rhymed letter, 6 May 1889, sent to LC’s niece Violet Dodgson as prose for her to puzzle out. See Hatch, pp. 204–6, where it is set out as a poem as here.

  [Acrostics, riddles and a cipher-poem]

  Most of LC’s acrostics, double-acrostics and riddles are gathered in this section but see also: “Little maidens, when you look”; the ingenious dedication to The Hunting of the Snark; and “Is all our life, then, but a dream” and “Dreams, that elude the Maker’s frenzied grasp”.

  [Cipher-poem and translation]

  These were enclosed in a letter to Edith Argles, 29 April 1868, for the amusement of Edith and her sister Dolly. Lily and Fox were two dogs. The verse is in the Telegraph Cipher invented by Dodgson (see Hatch, pp. 53–6). No other such extended cipher poem by LC is extant.

  A Riddle

  Riddle addressed to Harriet, Mary and Georgina Watson (see note to “To Miss Mary Watson”), ?Summer 1870 (see Letters, i, 157). The clues seem to be all English plant names: e.g. maidenhair fern, goat’s beard, mouse ear plant, foxtail, dandelion, ox-eye daisy.

  [Puzzle]

  The missing letters spell out: 1 Mary, Ina, Hartie; 2 creature, wings; 3 Hartie, fairy, Ina, Mary; 5 Mary, Ina; 7 Hartie, party; 8 arithmetic.

  [Acrostic for Ruth Dymes]

  Inscribed in Charlotte Yonge’s Little Lucy’s Wonderful Globe (1871), sent as a present to Ruth Dymes (see next note).

  To Miss Margaret Dymes

  LC met the large Dymes family in 1877 and the friendship continued into the 1880s.

  [“No, no! I cannot write a line”]

  Sent to Margaret Cunnynghame, 10 April 1871 (see Letters, i, 163). See note to “To ‘Hallie’ �
�.

  [“ ‘Are you deaf, Father William?’ the young man said”]

  This acrostic for Adelaide Paine was written on the flyleaf of The Hunting of the Snark, sent as a present to her in 1876 (see Letters, i, 251–2).

  To the Misses Drury

  Acrostic poem to Minnie, Ella and Emmie Drury (see note to “[To the three Misses Drury 1]”), laid into a copy of the Snark given to them by LC on 6 April 1876 (Letters, i, 249). Minnie asked if the verses had a “hidden meaning”, but Carroll replied that they were only “acrostical”.

  [“Alice dear, will you join me in hunting the Snark”]

  Acrostic addressed to Alice Crompton, 7 April 1876 (Letters, i, 247). She was ten years old. It seems that she and LC never actually met but had a friendship by correspondence. She later became a leader in the movement for women’s suffrage and education.

  [“Alice dreamed one night that she”]

  On the same day that LC sent Alice Crompton the acrostic (see note above), he composed another, for another “unseen” Alice, Alice Pratt (see Letters, i, 248).

  [“From the air do they come”]

  In a presentation copy to Florence Louise (known as “Boofy”) Beaton who LC met at Sandown in August 1876 (Diaries, vi, 482) (Widener Library, Harvard University).

  [“Love-lighted eyes, that will not start”]

  Acrostic for Laura Isabel Plomer, who was fourteen at the time of their friendship in the mid-70s.

  Madrigal

  Sent to May Forshall, Christmas 1877; she meanwhile had sent him a mat (Hatch, p. 121).

  [Anagrammatic Sonnet]

  In a letter to Maud Standen, 18 December 1877 (Letters, i, 293–4), LC explains the composition of the “sonnet”: “Each line has 4 feet, and each foot is an anagram, i.e. the letters of it can be rearranged so as to make one word. Thus there are 24 anagrams, which will occupy your leisure moments for some time, I hope.”