Florence Becker Lennon (1895–1984)
Author of The life of Lewis Carroll
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Please note: "Victoria through the looking-glass" was published in the UK as "The Life of Lewis Carroll" - these ARE the same work, do not seperate.
Works by Florence Becker Lennon
Farewell to Walden 2 copies
Associated Works
Aspects of Alice: Lewis Carroll's Dream Child as Seen Through the Critics' Looking-glasses, 1865-1971 (1971) — Contributor — 124 copies, 3 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1895-02-20
- Date of death
- 1984-12-18
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Colorado (MA)
Columbia University (BA) - Occupations
- biographer
poet
suffragist
environmental activist
freelance writer
radio host - Short biography
- Florence Becker Lennon was born in New York City, a daughter of Leon and Johanna Beran Tanenbaum. She received a bachelor's degree in anthropology at Columbia University and a master's degree in education at the University of Colorado. She published four volumes of poetry, including Forty Years in the Wilderness, hosted a radio show on WEVD in New York (later in Boulder, CO) called "The Enjoyment of Poetry," and taught poetry workshops. She was also a freelance writer for the New York Call, the Boulder Daily Camera, and Town & Country Review. Her biography of Lewis Carroll, Victoria Through the Looking-Glass: The Life of Lewis Carroll (later revised and reissued as The Life of Lewis Carroll) was published in 1945. Although she struck up a friendship with Carroll's niece Menella, the rest of the family refused to cooperate, and Ms. Lennon was given almost no access to useful data. Her book was the first in the Freudian school of analysis of Carroll and his work.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
Boulder, Colorado, USA - Disambiguation notice
- Please note: "Victoria through the looking-glass" was published in the UK as "The Life of Lewis Carroll" - these ARE the same work, do not seperate.
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Note to future authors. Wrong is bad enough. Stupid is worse. But irritatingly stupidly wrong -- just don't go there, OK?
The amount of wrong stuff about Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll is immense. For example, all the sexual claims in things like "Lewis Carroll Psychoanalized" and William Epson's "The Child As Swain" are wrong because:
1. Sigmund Freud was wrong, so if you psychoanalyze Dodgson, you're gonna be wrong
2. They inflict their thinking on Dodgson, ignoring both Dodgson's historical show more context and Dodgson's patent autism
3. They get their facts wrong anyway!
So: Those books are stupid and wrong. And much of this airy-fairy book partakes of that same sort of criticism -- without even the virtue, if virtue it be, of actually understanding Freud. So this book is even sillier than Empson.
But here's what makes it truly awful: Florence Becker Lennon had access to real sources. She actually talked to Lorina Liddell Skene (the older sister of Alice Liddell, who is the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland). Lennon was the last, and one of the few, people to do so. She had a primary source. And what did she do with it? Nothing. She just sat there saying, "Here is what Dodgson must have thought," without ever bothering to check it against data. She is so wrong-headed that she can't even figure out whether he was the oldest child of his parents or not (he wasn't; he was the oldest son, but there were older sisters).
I got this book because I knew Lennon had talked to Skene. But it was a complete, total waste. No footnotes, no real use of her sources, many errors, much silliness, and an author who couldn't even put together a coherent story line. (She would probably have said she wasn't writing biography, but that's no excuse for error!) You'd think an editor would have said, "Calm down and get it right." But, clearly, no one did.
And so -- as you can surely tell from the tone of this review -- we got stuck with a book that is wrong, stupid -- and irritating. show less
The amount of wrong stuff about Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll is immense. For example, all the sexual claims in things like "Lewis Carroll Psychoanalized" and William Epson's "The Child As Swain" are wrong because:
1. Sigmund Freud was wrong, so if you psychoanalyze Dodgson, you're gonna be wrong
2. They inflict their thinking on Dodgson, ignoring both Dodgson's historical show more context and Dodgson's patent autism
3. They get their facts wrong anyway!
So: Those books are stupid and wrong. And much of this airy-fairy book partakes of that same sort of criticism -- without even the virtue, if virtue it be, of actually understanding Freud. So this book is even sillier than Empson.
But here's what makes it truly awful: Florence Becker Lennon had access to real sources. She actually talked to Lorina Liddell Skene (the older sister of Alice Liddell, who is the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland). Lennon was the last, and one of the few, people to do so. She had a primary source. And what did she do with it? Nothing. She just sat there saying, "Here is what Dodgson must have thought," without ever bothering to check it against data. She is so wrong-headed that she can't even figure out whether he was the oldest child of his parents or not (he wasn't; he was the oldest son, but there were older sisters).
I got this book because I knew Lennon had talked to Skene. But it was a complete, total waste. No footnotes, no real use of her sources, many errors, much silliness, and an author who couldn't even put together a coherent story line. (She would probably have said she wasn't writing biography, but that's no excuse for error!) You'd think an editor would have said, "Calm down and get it right." But, clearly, no one did.
And so -- as you can surely tell from the tone of this review -- we got stuck with a book that is wrong, stupid -- and irritating. show less
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