Sylvie and Bruno. (Offered with) Sylvie and Bruno concluded
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- London: Macmillan and Co., 1893
London: Macmillan and Co., 1893. FIRST EDITIONS. Laid into Volume II is a printed leaf entitled “Advertisement” which is an announcement from Carroll dated Christmas, 1893. With 46 illustrations by Harry Furniss in each volume. Each frontispiece with tissue guard. Both volumes in original publisher’s red cloth, gilt illustration on each over, title in gilt on spines; the second volume is a fine and bright copy in the original green/grey dust jacket from the library of Caryl Liddell Hargreaves (1887-1955), the third son of the original “Alice” (and the only one to survive, his two older brothers having been killed in World War I). (Alice always denied that her son’s name was associated with Charles Dodgson’s pseudonym, but who truly knows!), which are both slightly darkened, all edges gilt. Overall a fine set. First editions. These are the last full-length novels by Carroll during his lifetime. Sylvie and Bruno is more of a social novel treating many of the Victorian-era issues such as morality, religion, and society in general.
“There is hardly any plot: Sylvie and Bruno, after living with a Warden, Sub-Warden, Professor, Beggar, Gardener, Uggug (the young artist) and others, are conducted by the Gardener into Elfland, ride on a lion, visit Dogland, and so on.” The second part is written in the same style as the first, “being in fact a succession of scenes with slight connexion or sequence, such as Bruno’s lessons, fairy music, Bruno’s picnic, the Professor’s lecture the pig-tale. There is more of serious tone than before, and some real tragedy ... but the humour is well sustained ... The preface is of great interest, for Dodgson defines the limitations under which he conceives of fairies, their powers and forms, and of psychical states of human beings, showing how carefully chastened his apparently riotous imagination was.”
The books were poorly received, as commentators deigned that the stories and humor were not typical of Carroll.
In the laid-in advertisement, Carroll describes his annoyance at the illustrations of the 60th thousand of Through the looking-glass: “most of the pictures have failed so much, in the printing, as to make the book not worth buying”. He therefore begs owners to return them for exchange.
Williams, Madan, Green, 217; 250 (and 249 for the single-leaf advertisement).
“There is hardly any plot: Sylvie and Bruno, after living with a Warden, Sub-Warden, Professor, Beggar, Gardener, Uggug (the young artist) and others, are conducted by the Gardener into Elfland, ride on a lion, visit Dogland, and so on.” The second part is written in the same style as the first, “being in fact a succession of scenes with slight connexion or sequence, such as Bruno’s lessons, fairy music, Bruno’s picnic, the Professor’s lecture the pig-tale. There is more of serious tone than before, and some real tragedy ... but the humour is well sustained ... The preface is of great interest, for Dodgson defines the limitations under which he conceives of fairies, their powers and forms, and of psychical states of human beings, showing how carefully chastened his apparently riotous imagination was.”
The books were poorly received, as commentators deigned that the stories and humor were not typical of Carroll.
In the laid-in advertisement, Carroll describes his annoyance at the illustrations of the 60th thousand of Through the looking-glass: “most of the pictures have failed so much, in the printing, as to make the book not worth buying”. He therefore begs owners to return them for exchange.
Williams, Madan, Green, 217; 250 (and 249 for the single-leaf advertisement).
Details
Title
Sylvie and Bruno. (Offered with) Sylvie and Bruno concluded
Author
CARROLL, Lewis
Condition
Unknown
Publisher
Macmillan and Co.: London
Date
1893
Edition
FIRST EDITIONS