John Kendrick Bangs

Alice in Blunderland: an Iridescent Dream. an Economic Parody Based on Lewis Carroll's Wonderland John Kendrick Bangs

John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) was born in Yonkers, New York, and is known for his work as an author, editor, and satirist. He worked for "Life", a number of "Harper's" periodicals, and "Puck", perhaps the foremost American humour magazine of its day. In "Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream"-first published in 1907-Bangs makes light of a range of economic issues familiar to his readers-these are quite topical and all-too familiar to today's reader as well. High taxes, corporate greed, bribery, institutional corruption, and govern­mental incompetence are amongst the themes of the book. Bangs' "Alice in Blunderland" relies more on absurdity than it does on nonsense, and some of the humour is indeed rather American. But Bangs' success is to make his reader smile wryly rather than laugh out loud-for his satire is very much on target.