Miscellaneous Alice > Lewis Carroll and J M Barrie...Did they meet ?

[Mrwed]

Another piece of the puzzle: Dodgson had a home in Guilford on the River Wey. Eight miles down the river was Black Lake, Tilford. Barrie had a summer cabin there where he and the LLewlyn-Davies boys had their outings.

Evidence keeps piling up but it's still circumstantial. They must have met !

[3rdpoliceman]

I'm still not so sure.

[Justin]

There are currently about 40 million adult citizens of the UK, one of whom is me. I have probably met a few thousand of the others in some context or other.

If I haven't met some specific one of the other 39 million plus is that down to my being adult averse?

[3rdpoliceman]

It would be cool to put Carroll, Barrie, Baum, Wyatt Earp and Jack the Ripper in the same room, just for laughs.

I like your reasoning, Mr. Justin.

[Mrwed]

3rd cop: I don't fathom your humor at all.

As for the seeming randomness of meeting a specific countryman, this is a special case. I don't expect to meet any relatives of Doc Holliday even though I'm in the same country but, if I were a prominent children's author and I went to presentations by another prominent children's book author and lived 8 miles away, I would make an effort. Has Stephen King met Amy Tan and Joyce Carol Oates and Dave Barry and...? Well yes he has.

[3rdpoliceman]

Nobody ever does.
What I mean is that it would be entertaining to see all those interesting people meet. And as an added bonus, Jack the Ripper might kill them all! And that's funny! Well, it would be were it not for the fact that he's killing two of my favourite authors (Carroll and Baum). But I wouldn't mind him killing Earp that much.

[3rdpoliceman]

3rd cop: I don't fathom your humor at all.

As for the seeming randomness of meeting a specific countryman, this is a special case. I don't expect to meet any relatives of Doc Holliday even though I'm in the same country but, if I were a prominent children's author and I went to presentations by another prominent children's book author and lived 8 miles away, I would make an effort. Has Stephen King met Amy Tan and Joyce Carol Oates and Dave Barry and...? Well yes he has.

Though I read that Carroll didn't really like being associated with his childrens' books, so he might not have wanted to meet Barry.
Though he loved the theatre and Barry was a playwright. Did Barry ever see the original Alice play? Or did Carroll ever bring any children to see Peter Pan and Wendy? If he did, he'd probably have mentioned it in his diaries. Or had Barry even written the play or become famous for it, by then?
Another thing they had in common: the both were photographers of children.

[Mrwed]

Though Carroll never saw Peter Pan, Carroll died before it was produced, he did attend, at least, two of Barrie's plays. He saw "The Professor's Love Story" in 1895 and "The Little Minister" in 1897. These references are from Lewis Carroll's letters.

[3rdpoliceman]

If he died before it was produced, then Barrie wouldn't even have been known as a childrens' author then. So the possibilities of them meeting would've been slimmer.

[Guest]

As far as I'm concern there is no diary entry nor letters or correspondence that he ever met JM Barrie personally.

He did met Mark Twain In late July 1879 whom Twain later on described the meeting in his 1906 autobiography.

[3rdpoliceman]

Mark Twain? Really?
But I doubt he met Barrie. Something like that doesn't go unrecorded. Anyway, he did not ever meet Lear either, an author much more similar to him than Barrie was.

[White Night]

I think the meeting of Barrie and Carroll would be a great piece of fiction. Although they have many obvious similarities I believe they also had some significant differences which could lead to some delightful conflict and debate. Brining in Twain would add to the merriment.

Very similar to Steve Martin's play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" a chance meeting of Picasso and Einstein, a delightful piece if you ever get a chance to see it.

[3rdpoliceman]

Must check out that play.
Philip Jose Farmer wrote a series of books about all the people in history (including us) all living in a place called 'Riverworld' or something. Haven't read the books, but I know Alice Liddell is a character. Too bad Farmer didn't think of writing a scene with Carroll meeting Barrie (it would've been fun to see Blackadder doing a sketch on it too, come to think of it).