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.
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