Welcome to the Collectors' Corner

[joelbirenbaum]

Hi, my name is Joel Birenbaum and I'll be your moderator for this category. I hope that means that I will do absolutely nothing, after all I'm too busy collecting. I've been collecting Alice for 30 years, I edit the newly created collector column of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America's magazine, The Knight Letter, and I created and run the Alice in Wonderland Collectors Network web site. An exhibit of Alice items chosen from my collection will be held at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wasau, Wisconsin from April 18 through sometime in June.
I collect everything Alice related, some with more intensity and some with less. Illustrated Alice books are still at the core of my collection. I rarely purchase dolls, but am always looking for new (old) figurines. Lately I have become more interested in collecting paper ephemera. I have found that Itoya art portfolios are a great, if not cheap, storage and display medium for these. I am currently in the process of creating a database of each individual item. I spend much too much time on this.
I am looking forward to an active and friendly forum.

[cheshirecat51]

Hi Joel,

I have a lot of Alice paper ephemera too, but I never knew the best way to display them. Where do I buy Itoya art portfolios?

Wendy

[Joel]

Itoya art portfolios are sold at art supply stores, also at Hobby Lobby, also check online.

[pleasance1]

Hello Mr Birenbaum,

How lovely to have a collectors' corner at last!

I have been collecting for about 10 years and I will happily collect anything relating to Lewis Carroll....but most of my collection is in reality consists books by and about Mr Carroll, and Alice-related non-book items. I prefer trawling through shops personally to finding items on-line.

I have been curious as to whether Lewis Carroll was the first (or at least one of the first) authors to merchandise his books. It is a fairly common practise today, but it seems from quite early on Lewis Carroll endorsed the production of Alice-themed ephemera. Does anyone know if this was a first?

[andrei65]

I am a newcomer in the Forum (am a translator of Carroll's texts in Russian). I am very-very glad to see Joel Birenbaum here. For 10 years or more I have anonymously visited your, mr. Birenbaum, Carroll's site and forum without posting a word. Now seeing you here I feel myself as in a circle of acquaintance. Thank you.

[joelbirenbaum]

Welcome to our new Russian friend. I have just returned from the LCSNA meeting where there were two Russian Canadian illustrators, and what a fine meeting it was. This is a friendly group, so feel free to talk about collecting any time. Are you a book collector? There have been so many interesting Russian Alices, at least from the illustration point of view. I don't speak a word of Russian, but I have many books. Nina Demurova is close to publishing a book on Russian illustrated Alices.

[andrei65]

Dear Dr. Birenbaum!

Thank you for such a cordial welcome! Glad to speak with you at last. I am not true book collector though I have got several different translations of Alice and Snark books in Russian (now Phantasmagoria exist in Russian too--in my own translation)--and in Japanese (I read Japanese and I discussed some questions of translating with a Japabese translator by I-net). And of course my handbook is Nina Demurova's Academician Alice. But in fact this book belongs to the traditional Carrollian studies of the last century. On the other hand a month ago I had got from England 2nd volume of Carroll's pamphlets (LCSNA edition) and ordered the 1st one--for studying and translating. Next year, maybe, there will be an opportunity for the 3d one. I am at work and reading, as you see.

I have to say, nevertheless, that I live in Minsk, not in Moscow, and don't contact with Russian academician adn popular Carrollian circles. Nina Demnurova and me had exchanged several letters some years ago.

[joelbirenbaum]

Thank you for bestowing the honorary doctoral degree, but for full disclosure, I am not a doctor. You may be interested to know that a Japanese translator, Kimie Kusumoto, was also at the meeting this weekend. I am currently working on preliminary plans for a celebration of Alice in the year 2015, which is the 150th anniversary of the book. My grand plan is to have a huge multifaceted celebration, probably in New York. The umbrella theme will be Alice in the Popular Culture, but an important sub-theme is Translating Alice. This might turn into a revisiting of the tower of Babel, but I will make an attempt.

[andrei65]

Excuse me kindly, dear Mr. Birenbaum! How have I to address you most properly here?

Very glad to learn about such an activity as preparing celebration of Alice as well as about a Japanese translator visiting our Forum. You see, dear Mr. Birenbaum, I saw in a Japanese part of I-net a scale of several Japanese translations of Alice books with estimation of the quality of each. So what about Jap. translations of Alice books as well as the Snark and Sylvie and Bruno you will can get all useful information if you need. About Russian translations I can say the best and well-known is Nina Demurova’s though there are some other good ones. But now, to my mind, some new adequate Russian translation is impossible, needless and superfluous.

The Snark translation is quite another matter. We have about twenty translations among which a well-known one, id est Grigorii Kruzhkov’s. Nina Demurova and Grigorii Kruzhkov keep together, they are both bigwigs in literary establishment but in spite of Alice translation (by Demurova) the Snark one (by Kruzhkov) is not fully adequate.

So the Snark is my beloved business now. A have translated the poem and added vast commentary and several articles first time after Martin Gardener had done it (at least, in Russian). I have translated Sylvie and Bruno, Phantasmagoria and other poems. This also might turn into a revisiting of the tower of Babel (in Russia this time) if I understood you mind quite right.

[joelbirenbaum]

I usually answer to Joel, thank you very much. If I remember correctly, I have a Snark translated by a Russian Physicist. I don't recall the name. Do all Russian physicists translate Carroll's Snark? Do cats eat bats?

[johntufail]

Hi Joel,

Aniticipating Andrei's response from my own experience, I would say they do.

One of the interesting things i found when I first started researching Carroll in the early 80's, was just how much the then Soviet Union Held Carroll in regard. I found numerous acadmecic articles about very many aspects of Carroll's works - far more than I could possibly of expected.

I also noted that, more often than not (in fact significantly more often than not), these articles were not submitted by literary critics, but by people whose grounding was in disciplines such as physics, philosophy and semiology (there was much interest in the Illustrtions of Carroll's books'.

Invariably and understandably, these articles tended to eliminate the auhor and concetrated on the text.

What I found intriguing in these articles was how comfortably the various writers were able to use Carroll as, at the very least, a sounding board for there ideas. All of these writers were clearly fundec and supported by a state that was totalitarian, pragmatic and ideologically mechanistic. The last sort of eregime that one would expext to feel comfortable with Carroll's anarchic and relativistic writings??!!

Regards
JT

[andrei65]

Thank you, dear Dr. Tufail, for such words. Now I think I have got something to say you as regards your main idea of limits of human knowledge and power of human mind as reflected in Carroll's works. I am thinking over my answer now.

[alicesteve1975]

Have been too busy these last few Weeks to visit the Forum. But just bought an EARLY Script of the 1951 Disney Film from an E-Bay outfit called "Envisionit." Has the Mock Turtle join the Caucus Race, and the Jabborwock chases Alice into the Croquet Match. Can send Scans if it will help. Is this Script Legit?