Davy and the Goblin


Davy and the Goblin, or, What Followed Reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a novel by Charles E. Carryl that was serialized in St. Nicholas magazine from December 1884 to March 1885 before being published by Houghton Mifflin of Boston and Frederick Warne of London in 1885. It was one of the first "imitations" inspired by Lewis Carroll's two books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
The story is about eight-year-old Davy who reads Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland next to the fireplace, when he begins to get sleepy. A Goblin appears in the fire, munching coals, and takes Davy on a “believing voyage” where he meets a variety of characters from fantasy and literature.
The book features line drawings by Edmund Birckhead Bensell.
As evidenced by the digitization of it by the Internet Archive, the New York Public Library has an 1885 copy of the book published by Ticknor & Co., inscribed by the author and apparently given to his twelve‐year‐old son: "To my dear little Son Guy / New York October 31st 1885 / Chas. E. Carryl."
In 1891, Carryl wrote another book inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, called The Admiral's Caravan.