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Commentary by Ray Dyer

Tenniel would have had very little in the way of precursors and inspiration for this ground-breaking illustration of the fantastic and unheard of - a talking leg of mutton, well-groomed in social etiquette! Artistic predecessors such as much celebrated Punch contributors, George Cruikshank and John Leech would have known of the Italian folktale of clever and articulate "Puss-in-Boots," especially from the 1697 edition of Charles Perrault, with a new English edition of 1856. Talking and cunning Fox and Wolf characters were also known since Aesop's ancient Fables, with more recent European appearances in tales such as "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Three Little Pigs." Beyond these few, little else appears innovatory in Victorian compendium editions such as Halliwell (1886). Whilst classics such as "Hey Diddle Diddle" might have a multitude of animal and inanimate characters - cat, fiddle, cow and moon for example - none of them actually speak, nor do they mirror much of social etiquette.

Tenniel himself, in his political satires for Punch, had previously resorted to such animal-infused nationalistic propaganda characters as the Russian Bear and the British Lion, whilst the popular John Bull character was fully human except in name. An example from February 21 1863 was Tenniel's A Growl for Poland, with dog and silent bear accompanying John Bull. From May 22 1875 in O, Lovely Peace, the central bear only dances. In his later related picture All's Well Tenniel does show the British Lion and the Russian Bear having an actual conversation, though that was as late as December 1894. One cannot help but wonder to what extent the illustrator's later political satires were occasionally influenced by his early encounters with the creative and original requirements of the widely popular Alice books.

Quite suddenly, from 1865 with his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll appears to a much wider public, and John Tenniel begins portraying a host of unusual speaking characters, drawn for example from King and Queen playing cards, adorable animals such as a white rabbit, a mouse and others. Here in Through The Looking Glass we have already, in earlier commentaries, met and listened to the ambivalent chess pieces, especially the Queens and the Knights; the lovable fawn and many other fantastic characters. Finally, here in his major closing chapter of fantastic action, Carroll has Tenniel go even further, and depict for him a number of quite inanimate objects which nevertheless have [implied] speech and other social-cultural attributes: the polite leg of mutton, a plum pudding yet to appear with its "thick, suety sort of voice," and even a boisterous soup ladle "beckoning to [Alice] impatiently"! What can we say, but "Bravo!" The ubiquitous Victorian soup ladle had appeared previously, in Lewis Carroll's [pre-Carrollian] final undergraduate year of 1854, with his lively poem, "The Lady of the Ladle," published under his early pen-name of 'B. B.' (Diaries, 10: 480 and n168). As noted elsewhere, this had seen the young Oxford student almost certainly and mischievously satirising an earlier poem - "The Lady of the Lake," 1810, a narrative Scots romance by the literary idol Sir Walter Scott (see Dyer (2016): 411 n.28). Thereafter, in the first Alice book, the by then busy ladle reappeared in the cook's hand in Tenniel's fully informative and detailed depiction of the Duchess and the Baby.

Carroll's intention to portray the latter literary inventions as definite members of his complex story's dramatis personae is unquestionable. Alice herself had earlier, on entering through the doorway, described the multitude of talking animals, birds and flowers as "the right kind of people to invite," which also invites the reader's temporary suspension of any and all further critical logic. In his later and final children's fantasy, Carroll would revert to the use of inscribed messages for inanimate objects - one recalls his use in the first Alice book of the "Drink me" label attached to the mysterious bottle - as later with Sylvie's crimson locket (Carroll, 1889, Ch. VI: The Magic Locket), which has all the powers of a talisman or amulet. Talking creatures would however continue to flourish from the author's endless imaginings, as with "a Rattlesnake which questioned him in Greek"; a mastiff sentinel and a Dog-King who speak in Doggee, and a Father-Badger and a Mother-Herring who together lament their various missing children, whilst dreaming of "Ipwergis-Pudding to consume, And drink[ing] the subtle Azzigoom!" (Ch. XVII).

Links to related material

• John Tenniel's Natural Fantasy: The White Rabbit
• "Which way? Which way?": The Fantastical Inversions of Alice in Wonderland
• Anna Sewell and Black Beauty

Bibliography

Carroll, Lewis. Sylvie and Bruno. London: Macmillan, 1889.

_____. Lewis Carroll Diaries. The Private Journals of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Vol. 10. Ed. by Edward Wakeling. England: Lewis Carroll Society, 2007.

Dyer, Ray. Lady Muriel. The Victorian Romance by Lewis Carroll. Annotated Scholar's Edition. . Leicester: Troubador, 2016.

Halliwell, James Orchard. The Nursery Rhymes of England. Illustrated by W. B. Scott. London & New York: Frederick Warne & Co., 1886.

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last modified 9 December 2021