The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia - Smithsonian ...

n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 9A Final Note: Why is a RavenLike a Writing Desk?These three popular postal products—writing desks,pictorial envelopes, and valentines—provide a windowon the habits of Victorian consumers post- 1840. Real andfictional Victorian letter writers used writing desks forcorrespondence and safekeeping as well as to store pictorialenvelopes, valentines, and other writing materials,including quill pens—conceivably even those made froma raven’s feathers. To return to Carroll’s riddle: “Whyis a raven like a writing- desk?” When Alice demands toknow the answer, the Mad Hatter tells Alice, “‘I haven’tthe slightest idea.’” 33 In a preface to an 1896 edition ofAlice in Wonderland, Carroll—who was hounded for theanswer to his riddle for over thirty years—declares:Enquiries have been so often addressed to me,as to whether any answer to the Hatter’s Riddlecan be imagined, that I may as well put on recordhere what seems to me to be a fairly appropriateanswer, viz: “Because it can produce a few notes,tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with thewrong end in front!” This, however, is merely anafterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented,had no answer at all. 34Carroll could “nevar” resist a play on words, much asCarroll enthusiasts are “nevar” satisfied with Carroll’sanswers. Fans have come up with other clever responses,including: “Edgar Allan Poe wrote on both,” and “Bothhave quills dipped in ink.” 35 How “curious” that Carroll’sriddle has outlasted the Victorian writing desk.Notes1. Carroll kept an accurate register of all the letters he wroteand received throughout his lifetime.2. Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures inWonderland & Through the Looking Glass (New York: Norton,2000).3. The first “private” version printed by William Clowesand Sons came out in January 1837. A second edition for thegeneral public published by Charles Knight appeared on February22, 1837; two more editions followed, one later in 1837and a fourth in 1838. Hill, who analyzed the costly, unwieldyBritish postal system from the vantage point of an enlightenedoutsider, went on to become Secretary to the Postmaster Generalof the Post Office in 1846, and, by 1854, Secretary of thePost Office.4. The Post Circular had a run of 16 issues (March 14,1838, until November 20, 1839).5. This appears in an article in The Post Circular 11(Wednesday, April 17, 1839), 54.6. Douglas Muir, Postal Reform and the Penny Black: ANew Appreciation (London: National Postal Museum, 1990),176.7. Printers of caricature envelopes include J. W. Southgate,Ackermann & Co., and Messrs. Fores of Picadilly. For a full discussionof the reception of the Mulready envelope, I recommendmy book Posting it: The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing,particularly two sections in the second chapter, “A Tale ofRidicule” and “Mulready Caricatures: A National Lampoon,”95–101.8. Asa Briggs, Victorian Things (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1989), 331.9. Zurich issued the 6 Rappen and 4 Rappen on March 1,1843; Geneva released the Double Geneva on October 1, 1843.The Canton of Basel issued the Basel Dove on July 1, 1845. Brazilproduced the Bull’s Eye stamp on August 1, 1843, and onJuly 1, 1847, the United States issued five- and ten- cent stampsfeaturing, respectively, Benjamin Franklin on a red- brown stampand George Washington on a black stamp.10. “Sir Rowland Le Grand” is a John Tenniel cartoon appearingin Punch on the occasion of Hill’s retirement as Secretaryof the Post Office in 1864.11. In a November 20, 2009, correspondence with CorinneHarrison, print cataloguer at the National Portrait Gallery, Ilearned that the Hill portrait (NPG 838) remains in storage; theportrait and the gallery’s holding of photographs and prints ofHill can be viewed privately by appointment.12. For more on this subject, I recommend the concludingchapter of my book entitled Posting It: The Victorian Revolutionin Letter Writing (University Press of Florida, 2009).13. Briggs, p. 11.14. Briggs, p. 12.15. Morton N. Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biography (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), 493.16. Lewis Carroll, Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (Oxford: Emberlin, 1890), pp. 2–3, 16–17, and 37.17. References to writing desks appear in Shakespeare’s AComedy of Errors in order to safeguard a purse of ducats. SeeHarris, Portable Writing Desks, pp. 10–11 for a complete history.Some Victorians like Carroll hyphenate the word “writing- desk.”18. The top of the box serves as a writing slope if the box ishinged at the top, but the open lid acts as the writing surface ifthe box is hinged at the bottom.19. For descriptions and pictures of a range of Victorian writingdesks, see Harris, Portable Writing Desks, especially 22–23.20. I include this reference to Jane Austen even though sheprecedes the Victorian age because her work made great contributionsto it. See Carol Shields, Jane Austen (New York: Penguin,2001), 45.21. Briggs, p. 343.