The Westminster Alice E-Book

Saki

• Herausgeber: Renard Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 46

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The Westminster Alice is a collection of humorous vignettes by Saki, first published in the Westminster Gazette in 1902, which form a political pastiche of the Alice books by Lewis Carroll, featuring an unforgettable cast of notable politicians of the day, and brought to life with illustrations by F. Carruthers Gould – 'with apologies to Sir John Tenniel' for their striking likeness to the original Alice illustrations. Desperately trying to navigate her way through the world of Ineptitudes, Knights, Queens and Mad Hatters, Alice delivers a stinging satire of Westminster politics – which, imbued with Saki's charm and delicate wit, and set in a world evocative of Carroll's timeless Wonderland, is as charming today as when it was written, and belongs on every Alice fan's bookshelf.

Leseprobe

The Westminster Alice

saki

illustrated by f. carruthers gould

renard press

Renard Press Ltd

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The Westminster Alice first published in 1902

This edition first published by Renard Press Ltd in 2021

Edited text, Notes and Biographical Note © Renard Press Ltd, 2021

Cover design by Will Dady

The pictures in this volume are reprinted with permission or are presumed to be in the public domain. Every effort has been made to ascertain their copyright status, and to acknowledge this status where required, but we will be happy to correct any errors, should any unwitting oversights have been made, in subsequent editions.

Renard Press is proud to be a climate positive publisher, removing more carbon from the air than we emit and planting a small forest. For more information see renardpress.com/eco.

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contents

The Westminster Alice

Introduction

Alice in Downing Street

Alice in Pall Mall

Alice at Lambeth

Alice and the Liberal Party

Alice Anywhere but in Downing Street

Alice in Difficulties

Alice at St Stephen’s

Alice Lunches at Westminster

Alice in a Fog

Alice Has Tea at the Hotel Cecil

Alice Goes to Chesterfield

The Aged Man

Spades in Wonderland

Notes

Biographical Note

the westminster alice

With apologies to Sir John Tenniel and to everybody else concerned, including Messrs Macmillan and Co., Limited, to whose courtesywe are indebted for permission to publish these political applications of the immortal adventures of Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

introduction

Alice, child with dreaming eyes,

Noting things that come to pass

Turvy-wise in Wonderland,

Backwards through a looking glass.

Figures flit across thy dream,

Muddle through and flicker out;

Some in cocksure blessedness,

Some in philosophic doubt.

Some in brackets, some in sulks,

Some with latchkeys on the ramp,

Living (in a sort of peace)

In a concentration camp.

Party moves on either side,

Checks and feints that don’t deceive,

Knights and bishops, pawns and all,

In a game of make-believe.

Things that fall contrariwise,

Difficult to understand,

Darkly through a looking glass,

Turvy-wise in Wonderland.

alice in downing street

‘Have you ever seen an ineptitude?’ asked the Cheshire Cat suddenly; the Cat was nothing if not abrupt.

‘Not in real life,’ said Alice. ‘Have you any about here?’

‘A few,’ answered the Cat comprehensively. ‘Over there, for instance,’* it added, contracting its pupils to the requisite focus, ‘is the most perfect specimen we have.’

Alice followed the direction of its glance and noticed for the first time a figure sitting in a very uncomfortable attitude on nothing in particular. Alice had no time to wonder how it managed to do it; she was busy taking in the appearance of the creature, which was something like a badly written note of interrogation and something like a guillemot, and seemed to have been trying to preen its rather untidy plumage with whitewash.

‘What a dreadful mess it’s in!’ she remarked, after gazing at it for a few moments in silence. ‘What is it, and why is it here?’

‘It hasn’t any meaning,’ said the Cat. ‘It simply is.’

‘Can it talk?’ asked Alice eagerly.

‘It has never done anything else,’ chuckled the Cat.

‘Can you tell me what you are doing here?’ Alice enquired politely.

The Ineptitude shook its head with a deprecatory motion and commenced to drawl, ‘I haven’t an idea.’

‘It never has, you know,’ interrupted the Cheshire Cat rudely, ‘but in its leisure moments,’ (Alice thought it must have a good many of them) ‘when it isn’t playing with a gutta-percha ball it unravels the groundwork of what people believe – or don’t believe, I forget which.’

‘It really doesn’t matter which,’ said the Ineptitude, with languid interest.

‘Of course it doesn’t,’ the Cat went on cheerfully, ‘because the unravelling got so tangled that no one could follow it. Its theory is,’ he continued, seeing that Alice was waiting for more, ‘that you mustn’t interfere with the inevitable. Slide and let slide, you know.’

‘But what do you keep it here for?’ asked Alice.

‘Oh, somehow you can’t help it; it’s so perfectly harmless and amiable and says the nastiest things in the nicest manner, and the King just couldn’t do without it. The King is only made of pasteboard, you know, with sharp edges; and the Queen’ – here the Cat sank its voice to a whisper – ‘the Queen comes from another pack, made of Brummagem ware,* without polish, but absolutely indestructible; always pushing, you know; but you can’t push an Ineptitude. Might as well try to hustle a glacier.’

‘That’s why you keep so many of them about?’ said Alice.

‘Of course. But its temper is not what it used to be. Lots of things have happened to worry it.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Oh, people have been dying off in round numbers, in the most ostentatious manner, and the Ineptitude dislikes fuss – but hush, here’s the King coming.’*