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From: mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Is Victoria Alice?
Message-ID: <2577@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Apr-84 14:29:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2577
Posted: Mon Apr 30 14:29:53 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 1-May-84 08:09:13 EDT
References: <408@ccieng5.UUCP>
Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh
Lines: 71

[the line softly and suddenly vanished away,
 for the Usenet's a Boojum, you see.]

I have not read anything directly written by the proponents of the 
Queen Victoria/Lewis Carroll theory,  all I know is what I read in
the newspaper and hear on the radio.  Nevertheless,  I am willing to
take a stand and proclaim that I find the arguments very dubious.

As I understand it,  there are three broad classes of reasons for
believing that the "Alice" books were written by Queen Victoria and
published under the penname of an obscure Oxford mathematician:
     1) Computerized text analysis of the books,  compared with
	Victoria's acknowledged diaries.  Most frequently mentioned
	are the use of the word "very" and the use of italics or
	underlining for emphasis.
     2) Parallels between characters in the books and persons in
	Victoria's life.
     3) The fact that the Alice books are clearly better than other
	stories written by Dodgson.

Being a fan of the Reverend Dodgson, but no scholar on the subject,
I answer thusly:
     1) I have never trusted text analysis,  especially simple signatures
	like the frequency of underlining.  The ancient and honorable
	debate over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays used, in part,
	the finding of secret codes in the manuscript -- the contemporary
	technological equivalent of computer analysis.  An author of
	a secret codes book that I read in Junior High pointed out that
	using similar techniques he could prove that those plays were
	written by a variety of people, including himself.  While I realize
	I was more impressionable in Jr Hi than I am now,  I am still inclined
	to believe that statement;  given the ability to pick and choose
	assumptions and facts,  one can prove anything.
     2) Ignoring the possibilities of coincidence and of the researchers
	seeing what they wanted to see,  I think it is not unlikely nor
	surprising that there are resemblances to royal relatives.
	Carroll threw in lots of topical references, and after all,
	Victoria was Queen and Carroll had reason to know about her life.
	A more telling question:  how did Victoria know enough to put in
	all those references to math,  people at Oxford, and the Liddell
	family?
     3) While it is true that "Sylvie and Bruno" would be forgotten if they
	weren't published under the name Lewis Carroll,  Carroll wrote
	lots of stuff in the same vein,  beginning when he was a schoolboy.
	One wonders if Victoria has the same reputation.  One also wonders
	what the alleged status of Jabberwocky is.  Is the Queen supposed 
	to have written it,  or did they throw in a bit of Carroll's verse
        to make it look more like Carroll actually wrote "Looking Glass" ?
	Carroll published a preliminary version of Jabberwocky years before
	the Alice books came out,  so it seems doubtful that Victoria wrote
	that poem.
     4) Alice Liddell and her sisters really existed.  The Alice books are
	supposed to have grown out of a story Dodgson made up on a boating
	trip.  With all the real live people who would have been party to
	such a hoax,  you would expect to find some leaks,  some mention
	in a diary like "today I received a letter from HRH asking me to
	confirm that CLD told a ridiculous story about a rabbit to A
	while we were all on a picnic.  As if I would ever get into the
	same boat with that dirty old man!  But with all my faults, I love
	my Queen,  so I'll do it."

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is a reasonably well known historical figure.
His prose, poetry, puzzles, and photos all show the same wit and fondness
for little girls.  I see little reason to suspect ghostwriting.

(This whole thing is probably a massive joke,  to make people like me waste
our time defending our hero,  when we should be grading final exams.)
-- 

_Doctor_                           Jon Mauney,    mcnc!ncsu!mauney
\__Mu__/                           North Carolina State University