A new book defends Lewis Carroll against accusations of pedophilia. But Benjamin Ivry asks why it leaves his controversial statements about Jews unexplained.
From Lewis Carroll to Vincent Van Gogh, the six most outrageous Jack the Ripper suspects.
● Jews and Jewishness in British Children’s Literature
By Madelyn Travis
Routledge, 200 pages, $125
The Belgian Jewish author Lydia Flem explored her family’s heritage in 2004’s “How I Cleared Out My Parents’ House” (Comment j’ai vidé la maison de mes parents) from Les éditions du Seuil. Holocaust survivors, Flem’s parents never spoke of their wartime sufferings. Flem, spared the horror of her family’s history, writes that her generation “had to struggle to live its own existence, its own history, distinct from [her parents’] traumatic memories.” Of her family’s silence about the Holocaust, she adds: