The Wasp in a Wig

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Lewis Carroll decided to suppress a scene involving what was described as "a wasp in a wig" (possibly a play on the commonplace expression "bee in the bonnet"). A biography of Carroll, written by Carroll's nephew, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, suggests that one of the reasons for this suppression was a suggestion from his illustrator, John Tenniel^, who wrote in a letter to Carroll dated 1 June 1870:

I am bound to say that the 'wasp' chapter doesn't interest me in the least, a wasp in a wig is altogether beyond the appliances of art and I can't see my way to a picture. If you want to shorten the book, I can't help thinking – with all submission – that there is your opportunity.

"The meeting with the Wasp echoes Alice's encounter with the White Knight. It too dwells on the subject of age and aging, the Wasp also serving as a mouthpiece for Charles's thoughts and feelings, disguised here, not by armor, but by a wig" (Cohen, Lewis Carroll, p. 216). The first of the Wasp's five-stanza explanation of how he came to wear the wig reads: "When I was young, my ringlets waved And Curled and crinkled on my head: And then they said 'You should be shaved, And wear a yellow wig instead.'" The interaction between the two shows a rare side of the ordinarily impatient Alice. In his introduction to the first published edition (1977) of The Wasp in a Wig, Martin Gardner explains the significance of the episode: "There is no episode in the book [Through the Looking-Glass] in which she treats a disagreeable creature with such remarkable patience. In no other episode, in either book, does her character come through so vividly as that of an intelligent, polite, considerate little girl. It is an episode in which extreme youth confronts extreme age. Although the Wasp is constantly critical of Alice, not once does she cease to sympathize with him."

Prior to 1974, the only reference to this missing portion among Carroll literature is found in Stuart Dodgson Collingwood's biography of his uncle, where he states that Through the Looking-Glass originally contained thirteen chapters, instead of the published twelve, the omitted chapter being the Wasp in the Wig episode. Scholars have questioned whether it really comprised a chapter or was rather an episode. More significantly, with the context these proofs provide, they now agree on its intended placement--just following the White Night chapter. Prior to the discovery of these proofs it was believed the Wasp episode appeared much earlier in Through the Looking-Glass: adjacent to the railway carriage scene.

For many years, no one had any idea what this missing section was or whether it had survived. In 1974, a document purporting to be the galley Proofs of the missing section was auctioned at Southerby's; the catalogue description, in part, read, "the proofs were bought at the sale of the author's…personal effects…Oxford, 1898." The document would be won by John Fleming, a Manhattan book dealer, for a bid of about US$832 (equivalent to $4,366 in 2020) The contents were first published in Britain by The Daily Telegraph in September 1977 and subsequently published by Macmillan in the same year,

The rediscovered section describes Alice's encounter with a wasp wearing a yellow wig, and includes a full previously unpublished poem. If included in the book, it would have followed, or been included at the end of, Chapter 8 – the chapter featuring the encounter with the White Knight. The discovery is generally accepted as genuine, but the proofs have yet to receive any physical examination to establish age and authenticity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking-Glass

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First UK Edition Illustration by Ralph Steadman Barry Moser

Ted Jouflas Hugh Casson Homelyillain

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