Gillian Beer is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature Emerita at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction and Virginia Woolf: The Common Ground. Named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1998, she has edited popular editions of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Jane Austen's Persuasion, and Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense: Collected Poems.
"Just when we all thought we knew the Alice books, along comes
Gillian Beer, who opens up not just new doors, but whole new
corridors and gardens down in Carroll's sideways world. Alice in
Space is a joy: playful, brilliant, and wise."--Rebecca Stott,
author of Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists
"Offering sensitive and judicious insights into Lewis Carroll--the
man, the mathematician, and the writer--Beer takes us on a
vertiginous voyage through the wonderlands of his creation. She
explores the scientific and ethical questions of his time and
reveals how the comic--and dark--fantasy of the Alice books often
conveys the subtlety of his dissenting views. Beer always writes
with stylish, consummate eloquence. Alice in Space exemplifies how
flights of passionate sympathy and imagination can also be acts of
scrupulous inquiry and immaculate research."--Marina Warner, author
of Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
"Alice in Space arouses our curiosity and there is plenty for the
general reader who likes the Alice books to enjoy. After reading
Alice in Space one can return to the texts with an enhanced
understanding, appreciating both author and his books to a greater
extent."-- "Children's Books History Society"
"An erudite, witty and intimate journey through Wonderland. . . .
Reading Alice in Space is like participating in a marvellous dinner
party conversation as the author moves freely and easily among the
intricate interrelationships of Victorian culture."-- "Times Higher
Education"
"Beer's work is a thoughtful approach to the world that shaped
Charles Dodgson into Lewis Carroll. While not for everyone, Alice
in Space is an appealing overabundance of unraveling literary
subtext. Its title's "space" refers to the physical and
metaphysical spaces explored by Carroll and his contemporaries as
they pushed the boundaries of thought by questioning the status
quo. Revisiting Carroll's work after reading Beer proves an
eye-opening experience for the modern reader, now more equipped to
grasp the subtleties of the Carroll's wit and subversive reliance
on the absurd and playful. By no means an easy read, Alice in Space
nonetheless offers a great deal of insight for those willing to
follow the author down, down, down..."-- "Spectrum Culture"
"Combining literary criticism and intellectual history, Alice in
Space is a rigorous and engaging guide to both the texts and the
contemporary structures of thought that made them possible."--
"Prospect"
"Gillian Beer's much-anticipated Alice in Space: The Sideways
Victorian World of Lewis Carroll has already been awarded a major
literary prize (Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism) and has
received a series of glowing reviews. The well-earned praise
recognizes Beer's playful and, at times, brilliant analysis of
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass. . . . Isis readers, particularly those with an
interest in the Victorian period or in the relationship between
science and literature more generally, will find much of value in
this book. . .not only did Beer's analysis make me want to go back
to Carroll's texts; more importantly, she made me want to go to the
works that shed further light on what Carroll was doing--to the
linguists, logicians, philosophers, men of science, and even
dreaded mathematicians who helped create a space for Carroll's
imagination to run wild."-- "Isis: A Journal of the History of
Science Society"
"The project of resetting Carroll's fanciful dreamscapes into their
historical moment has been done before. . . . Beer develops and
extends such footnotes into critical prose that describes the
intellectual and emotional contours of the Alice universe with
enchanting, lapidary precision. She also draws on new archival
material to reveal obscure but telling aspects of Carroll's doubled
identity as mathematician Charles Dodgson. The result is an
enjoyable and compelling description of the Alice books' slant
engagements with 1860s British culture. . . . Alice in Space is no
critical breakthrough, but its principal aim is more modest: to
enhance readers' understanding and enjoyment of the Alice books. In
this it succeeds superlatively, by revealing the historical milieu
of the books' carefree conceptual play."-- "Critical Inquiry"
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