Beschreibung:

DODGSON, Rev. CHARLES LUTWIDGE ("Lewis Carroll"). Autograph letter signed ("C.L. Dodgson") to "My dear Sir" [Percy Fitzgerald] in London, Christ Church, Oxford, 12 November 1872. 3 pages, 8vo, in purple ink on black-bordered mourning stationery, pages 2 and 3 offset on each other from damp, a few abrasions on page 1 affecting a letter, trace of mounting on blank page 4. DRAMATIZING "ALICE" Dodgson had written to the biographer and critic Fitzgerald, author of The Principles of Comedy and Dramatic Effect (1870), on 18 October (see Letters , ed. M.N. Cohen and R.L. Green, vol. 1, p. 180) seeking advice on turning one of the Alice books into a play for children. Here he responds to Fitzgerald's letter: "I have much pleasure in begging your acceptance of the 2 volumes [ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass ] which contain all that History is likely to know of the dream-life of 'Alice'...thank you for your kind counsels...I fear they are too prudent & well-founded in experience to be safely neglected. So I defer...the building of my castle in the air, a Childrens' Theatre. Nevertheless in one point I rather differ from you. I think that clever children could be found. Did you happen to see the 'Living Miniatures' whom Mr. Coe put together at the Haymarket a few years ago. There was a good deal of acting power in that little company. And have you ever seen the 8-year old phenomenon, Lydia Howard...She could be worth securing for the heroine, if my little book [one of the two Alice works] ever comes to be dramatised..." Not in Letters , ed. Cohen & Green, and presumably unpublished. Fitzgerald thought the Alice books would suit the stage, but had advised against Dodgson's idea of having the dramatization acted by children. Shortly after this above letter Dodsgon had the two works entered as dramas, but it was not until 1886 that an Alice work was staged: Alice in Wonderland: A Dream Play for Children , written by Henry Savile Clarke in collaboration with Dodgson.