Author Archives: Marco Graziosi

Lewis Carroll and His Telescoping Determinants

Posted on March 20, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

If you are interested in C.L. Dodgson’s mathematical works, you can read this article on the website of the Mathematical Association of America, which lists and links to several other essays on Carroll’s method for evaluating determinants.

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Alice in Russia

Posted on March 13, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

The Moscow Times has an interesting story of the coming of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland to Russia: it seems the book had a very negative reception from the time of the first 1879 translation until 1967, when Soviet bureaucrats … Continue reading →

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The 1903 Alice Movie

Posted on March 5, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

The whole of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (well, almost) in just 9 spectacular minutes, the original probably ran a bit longer as some scenes seem to be incomplete. On YouTube, in very low quality, but then I had never … Continue reading →

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Peter Newell's Patents

Posted on March 3, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

Peter Newell’s innovations in book technology, while mostly not very radical, induced him to patent the designs he created, below is the first page of his patent for the Slant Book: In the specification he writes: … I, Peter S. … Continue reading →

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Fictional Edward Lear

Posted on February 13, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

Interest in Edward Lear must be on the rise, at least among writers: he has been making appearances in a number of novels, short stories and even as the central character in Clive Barker’s play Subtle Bodies (in Forms of … Continue reading →

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Two Kinds of Paradox

Posted on February 13, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

Chris Gosling has kindly sent me a copy of G.K. Chesterton’s 1911 article “Two Kinds of Paradox,” first published in the Illustrated London News. See previous post on Chesterton.

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Chesterton on Nonsense

Posted on January 7, 2007 by Marco Graziosi

A post at the Blog of the American Chesterton Association about G.K. Chesterton’s frequent references to Edward Lear gives me an opportunity to mention that three nonsense related articles of his are on the Bookshelf of nonsenselit.org: A Defence of … Continue reading →

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A-Courting with the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Marco Graziosi

In my previous post on the sources of Edward Lear’s “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò” I forgot to mention William Wordsworth’s “The Blind Highland Boy,” noted by Michael Heyman in his Isles of Boshen; in the poem the boy escapes … Continue reading →

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On the Coast of Coromandel

Posted on December 7, 2006 by Marco Graziosi

Vivien Noakes, in her edition of Edward Lear’s Complete Verse and Other Nonsense (London: Penguin, 2001; pp.517-8), mentions as a source for “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò” a Great Wolford, Worcestershire, mummers’ play, in which the Fool says: In comes … Continue reading →

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Indian Nonsense: Anushka Ravishankar

Posted on November 7, 2006 by Marco Graziosi

Michael Heyman, whose not-to-be-missed thesis on Edward Lear, Isles of Boshen, has been online for some time, has an article on Anushka Ravishankar’s Indian Nonsense in the November issue of The Horn Book, a publication about books for children and … Continue reading →

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