More evidence on my Thurstan theory

 I've been looking even more closely at Edgar Thurstan's Alice illustrations, and I've spent hours today copying his illustration of Alice in the train carriage in Alice Through the Looking Glass. Here's what Lewis Carroll said, where I have just included the details of who was in the carriage,

“Tickets, please!” said the Guard, putting his head in at the window. . . All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he said, “You’re travelling the wrong way,”

“So young a child,” said the gentleman sitting opposite to her (he was dressed in white paper) . . . A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his eyes . . . There was a Beetle sitting next to the Goat . . . 

Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse voice spoke next. “Change engines—” it said, and was obliged to leave off.

“It sounds like a horse,” Alice thought to herself. And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, “You might make a joke on that—something about ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse,’ you know.” . . . 

The Horse, who had put his head out of the window. . . " - and that's really all the description that we get of the carriage and its occupants. So, here's my copy of Tenniel's illustration :-

and here's my copy of Edgar Thurstan's

Just for ease of comparison, here's the two of them side by side:-

I am not a lawyer of any kind, let alone a copyright lawyer, but come on! The case for the prosecution presents the following evidence: - 

1) The four figures in the Tenniel illustration are pictured in the same positions in relation to each other as in Thurstan's , and each of them is in the same pose in Thurstan's as in Tenniel's.

2) This is the only illustration of Tenniel's Alice in which she wears a hat of this style. Thurstan's is wearing a hat of the same style. Likewise, the gentleman dressed in paper. We are told he is dressed in paper, but not that he is wearing a hat, yet Thurstan's is wearing the same hat as Tenniel's

3) The interior of the carriage is extremely similar in both illustrations, with the two narrower windows either side of the wider window which is part of the compartment door. 

The evidence for the defence? Well. . . 

1) The man dressed in paper looks like Benjamin Disraeli in Tenniel's illustration. In Thurstan's he doesn't. 

2) There's no horse in Tenniel's illustration, but there is in Thurstan's and likewise, Thurstan shows a passenger to the goat's right while Tenniel doesn't.

3) Tenniel's sketch puts the viewer looking directly straight on into the compartment at eye level with the passengers. Thurstan puts the viewer above the figures to the viewer's right.

The verdict? Well, I think that Odhams wanted the Tenniel illustrations but for whatever reason they wouldn't or couldn't use them - cost perhaps. I don't know, They 'got away with it' if you like. I am pretty convinced believe that Thurstan was deliberately trying to produce something as close to Tenniel's original as possible with the majority of his illustrations for the two books. And fair play, I think this particular one is a fine piece of illustration. It's extremely detailed with a masterly use of hatching, cross hatching and shading. Taking Tenniel's composition and, if you like, rotating it through some forty degrees or so shows real technical skill. 

So I don't feel any great chagrin about the fact that the illustrations that so inspired me as a young kid and made me love the books were not Tenniel's but Thurstan's. Because essentially, the best of them were Tenniel's vision- just filtered through the lens of Thurstan.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

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I began writing Chapter VI of "Alice's Adventures at the Poles" today. So you never know, I may make some more original illustrations next weekend. Having said that though I really need to be making more of this year's hand drawn Christmas cards.

My Theory about Edgar Thurstan's Alice illustrations

It’s been quite a week. I retired from teaching officially in August. I was more than ready to finish teaching but not yet ready to finish working. Look, you’re a long time retired (hopefully). So I applied for a temporary position in admin with the NHS. I got the job and began in September. The salary combined with my teacher’s pension leaves us a little better off than we were, as opposed to taking a pretty big drop if we just lived on the teacher’s pension. My thinking was that it is easier to turn a temporary position into a permanent one from inside rather than out. I’ve been loving the job, however the opportunity arose for a slightly different position, doing a very similar job, but it’s permanent. Forty five of us applied. 12 of us were shortlisted for interview. I was offered the job. Even though this was what I wanted and planned, considering my age and inexperience I can’t believe that it has all worked out according to the master plan, and so quickly.

As if that wasn’t enough, my copy of the Odham’s edition of the Alice books, c. 1930, with the illustrations by Edgar Thurstan arrived. Well, the memories and nostalgia it evokes are worth the price of admission by themselves. My copy of an edition that uses Harry Rountree’s illustrations from 1928 came as well, so for now I’d say my Alice collection is complete – although I’m not ruling out looking for a copy of the TH Robinson/Charles Pears either.

Coming back to Edgar Thurstan’s illustrations, the first thing to note is that there aren’t a great many of them. I made it 21 in total for the two books combined. That compares to 92 Tenniel’s. I made the point last week that Edgar’s illustrations mostly owe a lot to Tenniel’s, in both style and content.  This illustration of Alice, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle is a decent demonstration of my point.

Compare this with Tenniel’s illustration of the same scene –

Here’s the two side by side

Essentially it seems to me that Edgar has taken Tenniel’s sketch and swapped the direction in which Alice if facing, and the positions of the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon. Yes, there are a few slight differences between the characters – the Gryphon lacks ears for example. For the most part though the debt to Tenniel is clear.

Why should this be, though? Well – and I stress that this is just my hypothesis and I have no evidence other than the illustrations themselves – this is what I think. At the time that Lewis Carroll passed away, copyright lasted for just ten years after the owner’s death, However, by the time that Sir John Tenniel passed away the copyright law had changed, with copyright remaining for fifty years after the copyright owner’s death. Thus while the books passed into the public domain in 1907, Tenniel’s illustrations did not until 1965 – incidentally within my own lifetime. So my guess is this. For what is essentially a popular edition, Odham’s might have wanted to use Tenniel’s illustrations, but didn’t because of copyright issues. So I guess they engaged Edgar, telling him to stick to as much of the style and substance of Tenniel’s illustrations as he could without breaking copyright.

And to be fair, the way that he has changed viewpoint, and characters’ positions while still retaining much of the feel of Tenniel’s originals is pretty remarkable, and a demonstration of skill.

However the flip side of this is that Thurstan’s more original illustrations – the croquet match, the mad tea party and the caterpillar – are, to my mind, the weakest of the set. For example, his depiction of the caterpillar gives him face on, which I feel is a mistake as it has none of the care or feel for character that his most derivative illustrations do.

I’ll leave you for now with a question. If you could only draw ten illustrations for Wonderland, which ten would you include. Or to put it another way, which could you possibly leave out?

Chapter V complete

It has taken me 2 or 3 weeks to do so, but I have now finished writing the first draft of chapter V of Alice’s Adventures at the Poles. Just as importantly, I have now also completed the first 21 illustrations for the book, which means I am ahead of schedule by 1.

Last Sunday I posted the first two of these –

During the week I made this one.

I say it as shouldn’t but I love this one. It’s a rare example of a sketch getting better the more that I worked on it.

This morning I made these two: -

You know how I works by now – no explanation of how they work in the story – although I will admit that the second is meant to show the Prince of Whales.

Collecting, and a case of mistaken identity

I have a story to tell, one of mistaken identity. Right, so, to recap. My love of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books came about originally through a copy of the book owed by my grandfather originally. It was one of the first ‘real’ books I read, and I was always fascinated by the illustrations. I did think that these were the Tenniel illustrations.

Recently I’ve been collecting just a few editions of Alice illustrated by my favourite Alice illustrators. Okay. Well, I had a really good morning this morning. I completed no fewer than 2 more illustrations for Alice’s Adventures at the Poles. This puts me at 21 illustrations for the first five chapters and means I am ahead of the game.

This was why I decided o reward myself with an ebay search. I was looking on ebay this morning and there it was, that very same edition I was looking for. Only, it turns out that it wasn’t published by the Daily Express, but by Odhams. Looking at the photographs accompanying the listings it’s definitely the same. The price was right and I’ve bought it.

The actual book itself that interested me so as a kid, well, that’s in Hillingdon with my younger brother. After I moved out to University I never really came back to live in Nan’s house, and Rob (my brother) sort of inherited it by right of possession, being the last to move out. As I recall he covered the covers in transparent sticky black plastic to preserve it. His heart was in the right place but I wish he hadn’t done it.

Knowing it was published by Odhams has enabled me to zero in on it. Because, well, I’ve had this nagging doubt in my mind that the illustrations within it were actually the Tenniel originals. You see, I’ve always loved Tenniel’s illustrations but I seem to recall back in the dim and distant past realising that the illustrations in this book are not quite the same. Well, it turns out I was right. Looking at photographs with this listing and other listings for the same edition, it says that the illustrations are by Edgar Thurstan. Edgar Thurstan? As in E.B. Thurstan? Blimey!

If you’ve ever looked on my Alice Illustrations page, you may have noticed that I have copied one E.B. Thurstan illustration showing Alice peering up at Humpty Dumpty. This is what I said at the time:-

“I came upon the original of this copy, which is by an artist called E.B.Thurstan. It was published in 1930. Frustratingly I have been able to discover nothing about the artist. But I love the original of this. Yes, I think it owes maybe a debt to the Tenniel Humpty Dumpty, but I think Humpty himself is stunning, and our viewpoint, looking down onto his wall, is brilliant.”

Well, yes, Looking at photographs of Thurstan’s illustrations I’m guessing that his obvious debt to Tenniel is why he never seems to be featured among the ranks of the top Alice illustrators. Because his Humpty is actually one of his more original illustrations. In others he seems to have taken Tenniel’s characters, maybe altered one or two details, and changed the positions or perspective a little, but by and large used Tenniel’s established conventions. It’s as if the editors have said – well, we don’t want to use the actual Tenniel sketches, but see how close you can get without actually copying line for line. The result is almost a kind of ‘I can’t believe it’s not Tenniel.’ There’s no doubt in my mind that Edgar Thurstan was definitely a talented illustrator. An original one, though?

Well, I only ordered the book this morning, so I haven’t received it yet. I’ll say more when I do.

Alice and the Collector's Gene

My son in law Dan – who is one of my best friends as well – and I will both admit to possessing the collector gene. Luckily for Dan his wife, my daughter Jess, inherited it from me, so they’re well matched in that respect.

Of course, the ‘collector gene’ is not genetic. Collector or collecting behaviour is influenced by a wide variety of factors. But it seems to be true that some of us are more susceptible to the desire to collect than others. I have a number of small collections of different things. The fact that I’m only going to discuss one of them should let you know that I don’t feel that this is an altogether healthy state of affairs. But as Shakespeare once wrote – Above all else, to thine own self be true.

It started a few weeks ago. I went looking on eBay for a copy of Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass, in a set published by the Daily Express in the 30s. This was the book that inspired me when I was very little.

I didn’t find it.

I did, however, find a combined edition of the two books with the Mervyn Peake illustrations for a very, very good price. So I bought it. 

Then a week or two later I thought -I’d love a combined edition with Ralph Steadman illustrations- There is actually a method to this. My thinking is I might be able to find illustrations in the books that you don’t see on the internet. I found one – not cheap cheap, but considering the sumptuousness of the book it was extremely reasonable.

The thing is, once you have a couple, you have a collection starting. In the last seven days I’ve bought editions with the Arthur Rackham illustrations, 

and the Charles Robinson illustrations. 

Also, in my hunt I did see a ridiculously cheap edition with Rene Cloke’s 1944 illustrations. And the thing is – I don’t even like Rene Cloke’s illustrations that much. I can appreciate the skill, but they don’t speak to my conception of Alice. But it was so bloody cheap I couldn’t leave it!

Which, you may have worked out, leaves Harry Rountree alone of my absolute favourites, whom I have yet to obtain a copy of. Don’t worry – I bought one on ebay today! Collector’s gene – gotta love it, ain’t you?

If I can speak a little in my own defence, at least I'm not trying to buy ridiculously expensive first editions. It's the illustrations in the books that are valuable to me. 

Plugging away at Chapter V

At the moment it is taking me a fortnight or more to write a whole chapter of Alice’s adventures at the Pole. I managed about five hundred words of chapter five last week, to which I added another 1000 words yesterday. It’s only just a tiny bit more than a third written so far. However, what I had written did inspire me to make two of the illustrations for the chapter. Here’s the first.

As I’ve said on previous occasions when posting my own illustrations to my own story, I don’t want to start telling the story before I’ve finished writing it. However this one is rather self-explanatory. Alice turns into a fish.

I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve come up with here. I don’ know if you’ve ever seen Monty Python’s rather disappointing last film, “The Meaning of Life”. One of the devices for linking – or trying to link – the disparate narrative elements of the film is a group of fish in an ornamental fish tank, upon whom the Pythons’ heads have been superimposed. Bearing in mind the technological limits of film special effects in the early 80s, it’s not bad. That kind of inspired the appearance of the Alicefish in my illustration.

This is the second illustration, of a crab with a violin case holding onto Alice’s lateral fin. No explanations for this.

In what I’ve written so far of the chapter I certainly can see an opportunity for another illustration, but I’m going to need to finish the chapter in order to make a full appraisal of what I can do. Who knows, maybe I’ll make more than two more illustrations to this chapter? As long as I can keep the ball rolling towards the forty eight in total that I’m aiming for.

One third is Done

I don’t know if I explained this in a previous post. Forgive me if I did. I’ve planned to write “Alice’s Adventures at the Poles” in 12 chapters. Both Wonderland and Looking Glass are written in 12 chapters so if that’s good enough for Lewis Carroll then it’s good enough for me. So, with regards to illustrations, Tenniel made forty two for Wonderland and fifty for Looking Glass. I decided to split the difference. Averaging at four illustrations per chapter it works out at forty eight. That’s how many I plan.

Now, that doesn’t mean I have to limit myself to only four per chapter, or that each chapter must have four. But by this time last week I’d written the first four chapters – or a third of the book. At that time I had made

7 illustrations for chapter 1

2 illustrations for chapter 2

2 illustrations for chapter 3

2 illustrations for chapter four. So even allowing for my bumper crop of illustrations for chapter 1 I am still 3 short for the first third of the book.

So the obvious thing was to try to make another illustration for each of the first three chapters. Ideally, Alice would feature in each of them. Yesterday I went for it, and produced the three – one of which I was not satisfied with and did it again this morning.

When I’m doing an illustration that features Alice herself then I tend to work with pencil first. I haven’t worked like this for years, but getting Alice as close to right as I can is difficult. Even when I was just copying Tenniel’s Alice illustrations I never got Alice’s head quite right. So here’s the three illustrations in chapter order.

This is the illustration to chapter 2. It shows Alice with the main supporting character of the chapter. I liked the way that I’d draw him so much that I did actually go back to the text and change the written description to fit the illustration a little bit better. Alice here draws heavily on one of my own earlier illustrations although I did change the position of the arms and legs. In case you’re wondering the other character is holding a snowball. You’ll have to take my word for it that this is important. 

This is my new illustration for chapter three. I spent a longer time doing the first version of this yesterday than I spent on either the illustration above or the one below, both of which I’ve kept and think are far better. Well, look, the whole purpose of starting Alice’s Adventures at the Poles was to give me a chance to make original Alice illustrations which I think are as good as I can make them. And that one just wasn’t. This is better, because the Alice figure is better. Not great, mind you, but as good as I think I can do. Well, engaged in this activity anyway.

Then, after all that unsuccessful effort this next one just seemed to flow from pencil and pen. Alice’s head is again inspired by a photo of my oldest granddaughter, Amelia, although in this case she does look just a little more like Amelia’s mum, my daughter Jenn. In the background I rather cheekily used a domed greenhouse which features in one of Tenniel’s illustrations of Alice talking to the King, Queen and Knave of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland”

So a bit of a mixed bag, but at least all three of these are good enough for me to allow them into my book. And if you’d told me when I started writing it that I’d be able to make sixteen of my own Alice story illustrations for the first third of the book I’d have called you a bloody liar, so that’s something.

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I've been expanding my collection of copies of Alice with illustrations by my favourite illustrators. I bought a combine Mervyn Peake copy a few week's ago, and last week a sumptuous Ralph Steadman combined edition. I love them both. My next target is a copy with the 1928 Harry Rountree illustrations. Watch this space.