The Princess and the Photographer

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon
(illustration from the Vanity Fair article)

Princess Margaret, the younger daughter of King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth and the only sibling of Great Britain's reigning Queen, was married for 18 years to a celebrated and charismatic British photographer. She was the first daughter of a King in Britain to marry a commoner in 400 years, paving the way for other royals in more recent generations to do the same.

In the Vanity Fair Archive there's a lengthy illustrated article called "The Princess and the Photographer" that paints a picture of the rosy early days of Princess Margaret's relationship with her husband Antony (Tony) Armstrong-Jones, who was given the title of 1st Earl of Snowdon after the marriage. Their wedding was watched on television by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and while their romance lasted they were among the world's most watched celebrities.

'Beaton paled'
The article is more a look into British high society of the era than a portrait of a photographer and his work, naturally. A brief quotation:

At the top of his profession before his marriage, Tony had never envisaged giving up work, although he knew that the commercial photography he had done previously was no longer a viable option. One day when he and Margaret were staying with Jeremy and Camilla Fry, Cecil Beaton came over for a drink before lunch. When Beaton fulsomely congratulated the Princess on her marriage, adding, “May I thank you, ma’am, for removing my most dangerous rival,” Margaret replied, poker-faced, “What makes you think Tony is going to give up work?” Beaton paled.

(Sir Cecil Beaton was one of the leading British professional and society photographers of the first half of the 20th century.)

The article, written by Anne de Courcy, was excerpted from her 2008 book Snowdon: The Biography.

Princess Margaret died in 2002 at the age of 71 and Lord Snowdon died in 2017 at the age of 86. Here's a book of his photographs.

Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)

Alice
I like to read, and probably a quarter of the 50 or 60 books I read in any given year are recommended either directly or indirectly by TOP readers. (I'm now embarked on Hitler: A Biography, which, at 1,073 pages, is the abridged version of Ian Kershaw's original two-volume set! Recommended by reader Dave Sailer.) A TOP reader recently posted a link to his own portrait of the prolific nonfiction writer Simon Winchester (wish I could find that), several of whose books I've enjoyed in the past, and it inspired me to read a couple more.

Due to public fascination and the enduring popularity of his famous books, which are known the world over, much has been written about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. But Simon Winchester's The Alice Behind Wonderland might be the only full-length book to concentrate almost entirely on Dodgson as a dedicated, enthusiastic early amateur photographer. Along the way Winchester tells us almost everything that's known about Dodgson-as-photographer and his most famous picture (and surely one of the most famous photographs in the world), his portrait of little Alice Liddell posed as a beggar-maiden. Alice, of course, was the reason Alice's Adventures in Wonderland came to be—it was a story that Dodgson improvised for the Liddell girls on a rowboat expedition that Alice, then aged ten, insisted he write down for her. He complied, of course, and, after testing it with a focus group (the children of his friend and fellow writer George MacDonald, who loved it), he determined to find a publisher. And the rest is history.

The only problem with telling us all that's known about these things is that...not all that much is known. But that makes for a slight book, and (unlike the Kershaw...), a quick read.

Alice Hargreaves in later life. I believe this was taken
on her visit to America in 1932.

Alice Pleasance Hargreaves (née Liddell)—who was also a model, in her twenties, for Julia Margaret Cameron—lost two sons in WWI and was fêted as a celebrity when she visited America in old age. She sold the original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground—the working title for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—for the equivalent today of about $1.2 million, but the manuscript was later purchased by a consortium of American businessmen and returned to the people of Great Britain. Curiously, the original photograph of Alice as the beggar girl is now so carefully protected that Simon Winchester himself was not allowed to lay eyes on it! Like most of us, he's only seen reproductions, never the real thing. Looking-glass, indeed.

There are a zillion editions of Alice, but if you're looking for a nice one, I can at least recommend the Books of Wonder edition from Morrow if you can manage to find it. That's the edition I own, but (curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice!) I've actually never read the book. (So many books, so little time.) It was also available in a boxed set with a matching edition of Through the Looking Glass.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "Am I the only one who spotted the reflection of a Rolleiflex in the window of the car where Margaret and husband are seated?

"Rollei: the choice of paparazzi since 1929...and until 1959."

Mike replies: Wow, good catch. I did not see that, and that's the kind of thing I'm usually quite good at catching. It's right there in front of our noses, too.

David Aiken: "Dodgson was also a lecturer in mathematics and logic and the two Alice books have long been appreciated by philosophers because in them Dodgson included examples of probably every logical fallacy and paradox known to him, most of which are not noticed by those readers without some knowledge of logic. Philosophers have been plundering the books for examples to use in lectures since soon after they were written.

"My favourite edition of the two books is Peter Heath's The Philosopher's Alice which provides annotations identifying and commenting on all of the logical and philosophical 'wonders' of the books with the kind of humour that led Dodgson to work them into his narratives. Very well worth a read by anyone who wants to know just what really is going on in the books when things get weird."

Comments

[eolake Stobblehouse]

I know "Alice" virtually by heart. It was the standard text for practice lines (from dialogue) in an extensive communications course I took in my youth.

[Eric Peterson]

Love Simon Winchester's work, some great armchair traveling there.

There is a long tradition of renewing yesterday's classic with an illustrator of today. Ralph Steadman's take on "Alice" much fun. Kudos to TOP for reading suggestions!

[Rob Campbell]

Tony Armstrong-Jones shot the sexiest photograph of Helen Mirren that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing.

It's of her in front of a makup mirrror.... easy to find if you consult Dr Google.

I photographed both TA-J and the princess when they came to perform a ceremony at the Scottish Design Centre. I also got the Queen and the Duke of E in the same venue. I no longer have the negs for the TA-J shots, but I do for the other couple and a few of the pix are somewhere on the website, fwiw.

Golden years. For all involved.

[Mike Chisholm]

I wonder if you know Dodgson / Carroll's parody of Longfellow, "Hiawatha's Photographing"? If you don't you should look it up. It starts with a nice description of using a view camera...

Mike

[John Camp]

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

--John Rogers

[Daniel Speyer]

Speaking of Alice, I believe the last movie with Wendy Hiller (the lead in for example Shaw’s Pygmalion) was entitled (as I recall) "Alice," and is about an older Alice coming to understand her relationship with Dodgson. It was IMO outstanding, but (1) the movie is AFAIK never listed amongst her credits and (2) I don’t believe a Google search comes up with the movie at all. As though it never existed. Odd.

[That happens to me occasionally. Probably you're remembering something amiss--wrong film name, wrong actress, something. An "I could have sworn..." type of situation. Only speaking from my own experience! --Mike]

[Helcio J. Tagliolatto]

That marriage confirmed what is known in practice: don't try to "tie" a photographer. He/she is a free spirit.

[JimH]

Looking for photos by A A-J, I came across this quote:

"I'm very much against photographs being framed and treated with reverence and signed and sold as works of art. They aren't. They should be seen in a magazine or a book and then be used to wrap up the fish and chucked away."

https://www.azquotes.com/author/85236-Antony_Armstrong_Jones_1st_Earl_of_Snowdon

[Daniel Speyer]

No, actually I am quite sure the movie was w/ Ms. Hiller and it was about Alice, as a very old adult talking about/understanding her relationship with him.

The circumstance that causes her to reflect on same is her being interviewed about it.

I had wanted to watch it again years ago, and I was surprised I could not find the movie mentioned. "Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice ... .

[Andy Wilkes]

I too love the books of Simon Winchester, for storytelling and a superb standard of writing. I would especially recommend 'The Professor and the Madman' (in the UK 'The Surgeon of Crowthorne'). His book 'The perfectionists' or 'Exactly' I thought did not meet its own brief in handling the subject; it was entertaining though.

[Pete Dawes]

Here it is:

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw199014/Helen-Mirren

[John Krumm]

Purely on the subject of "books to read," I just ordered Rutger Bregman's Humandkind, which I hope will be a sort of antidote to the despair that it is easy to feel right now. You can read a moving excerpt of the book here.

[James]

Looking at the reflection in the car window makes me wonder who the reflected photographer was focusing on. Who was riding in the car with Tony and Margaret?

[I assumed it was an additional camera hanging from the neck or shoulder of the photographer who took the picture. Photographers in those days tended to use one lens per camera, but carried several cameras. --Mike]

[Rob Campbell]

Than you, Pete, for digging up that snap of Helen Mirren: confirms my memory ain't left me quite yet!

If anyone knows of one sexier of that lady, don't be shy: send the link!

:-)

[David Aiken]

Dodgson was also a lecturer in mathematics and logic and the 2 Alice books have long been appreciated by philosophers because in them Dodgson included examples of probably every logical fallacy and paradox known to him, most of which are not noticed by those readers without some knowledge of logic. Philosophers have been plundering the books for examples to use in lectures since soon after they were written.

My favourite edition of the 2 books is Peter Heath's "The Philosopher's Alice" which provides annotations identifying and commenting on all of the logical and philosophical "wonders" of the books with the kind of humour that led Dodgson to work them into his narratives. Very well worth a read by anyone who wants to know just what really is going on in the books when things get weird.

[Gordon Masor]

Alice's Adventures Underground is very different from Alice in Wonderland. It is a children's story. The bound story given to Alice is half the length of Alice in Wonderland and was handwritten and illustrated by Dodgson himself. He even pasted a photograph of Alice on the last page. It was published in handwritten form and with Dodgson's illustrations in 1985 by Pavilion Press.

[Timothy Auger]

Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass are as much books for adults as books for children. They have an interest for me as I was an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, where Alice was the daughter of the Dean and Charles Dodgson was a maths don. One of my few claims to fame was appearing as an extra in a German seminar in about 1966 when the BBC was making a documentary at Christ Church about Lewis Carroll.

[Stan Greenberg]

In the 1960's and 70's (when I was a teen), Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice was THE reference for the Alice books. Here's Amazon's links:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Annotated+Alice&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Stan Greenberg, Kabri

[Keith trumbo]

The cover photograph of "Snowdon: A Life In View” driving an Aston Martin say’s it all regarding his protestation of other photographers selling their work as art. The 1960 UK list price of an Aston Martin was in the equivalent US Dollars, $12,687.

[Current inflation-adjusted equivalent, $111,600. And the price of a modern Aston Martin starts at around $156,000. --Mike]