sand copies were printed, and were later recalled because Tenniel wasn’t satisfied with the printing of the pictures. After the release of the first “Alice,” Carroll then decided to write a sequel. “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” was released six years later in 1872. Since their release neither “Alice” book has ever gone out of print. Now, in 1974 the London auctioneering firm of Sotheby Parke Bernet and Company listed, inconspicuously, the following item in their June 3 catalog:Dodgson (C.L.) “Lewis Carroll.” Galley proofs for a suppressed portion of “Through the Looking-Glass” slip 64-67 and portions 63 and 68, with autograph revisions in black ink and note in the author’s purple ink that the extensive passage is to be omitted. The present portion contains an incident in which Alice meets a bad-tempered wasp, incorporating a poem of five stanzas, beginning “When I was young, my ringlets waven.” It was to have appeared following, “A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook” on page 183 of the first edition. The proofs were bought…and are apparently unrecorded and unpublished. The word “apparently” in the last sentence was an understatement. Not only had the suppressed portion not been published but also Carroll experts did not even know it had been set in type, let alone preserved. The discovery that it still existed was an event of major significance (Gardner ix). The main question of many experts is, “Was the Wasp episode worth preserving?” It was definitely worth it historically, but does it have essential merit? Many that have recently read the episode say that it is not up to standards with the rest of the book. Peter Heath feels that one reason the episode lacks the vivacity of the other parts of the book is that it repeats so many themes that occur elsewhere (3-4).Christ ...
