Lewis Carroll

Crystal's Adventures in a Cockney Wonderland Lewis Carroll

Publisher Marketing: Cockney Rhyming Slang, as anyone who has stood at the till in a London souvenir shop could tell you, is a set of slang expressions based on taking the original word (say, "stairs") and rhyming it with the final word of a short phrase ("apples and pears"), and then, in some cases, shortening the new expression ("apples"). This can lead to a sentence such as: "Careful you don't slip and fall down the apples." While the slang is often cited as the "secret language" of the Cockney population of London, many of its expression have entered into general usage, not just in the UK, but throughout the English-speaking world. This is not a translation of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in the purest sense. It is, rather, the result of a linguistic game-another sort of translation. What Charles Dodgson would have loved most about Cockney Rhyming Slang, and what makes it suited for application to "Alice," is that it is, as John Ayto writes in his introduction to "The Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang," "all really part of a giant ongoing word game, whose product is much more droll artefact that linguists' lexeme." It is with this idea of Cockney Rhyming Slang as word game, and with the goal of creating "droll artefact," that this translation has been approached. Contributor Bio:  Carroll, Lewis Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an English writer, mathematician, Anglican deacon, and photographer. Best known for his classics Alice s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and Jabberwocky, Carroll was also an accomplished inventor who created an early version of what is today known as Scrabble. The publication of Alice s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 brought Carroll a certain level of fame, although he continued to supplement his income through his work as a mathematics tutor at Christ Church, Oxford College. Carroll s whimsical characters and nonsensical verse resonated with Victorian-era readers, and his books continue to be enjoyed by numerous modern societies dedicated to his promoting his works. Contributor Bio:  Tenniel, John Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), the pen name of Oxford mathematician, logician, photographer and author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, is famous the world over for his fantastic classics Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, Jabberwocky, and Sylvie and Bruno. Contributor Bio:  Lovett, Charlie TBA