The Magic of Lewis Carroll

Résumé : 'The Magic of Lewis Carroll' explores these activities and attempts to illuminate aspects of his literary work in their light as well as bringing together the most comprehensive collection of his games and puzzles yet compiled. In the cause of ambience John Fisher also includes several of those magical tricks and gambits beloved by the Victorian drawing-room entertainer, which while not original with Carroll were certainly familiar to him and therefore of some influence; manifestations of that same basic desire to fascinate and intrigue both young friends and high-table colleague. From the maze he traced on his father's snow-covered lawn as a child to the problem he wrestled with only a few nights before his death, Lewis Carroll's sense of wonder was nothing if not all-embracing. Hence parlour stunts jostle with mind-bending mathematical games and joky word-play with quaint logical paradox. Though always evident, his sense of playfulness is never far away from the seriousness with which he must be considered as a mathematician and logician. Carroll's diary reveals that towards the end of his life he was himself preparing a do-it-yourself literary Wonderlan; sadly the work never appeared but this volume will provide the same sort of fascination for all those who ever took delight in imagining themselves in Alice's shoes. No one wore them more happily than the shy Oxford don whose adopted name became a synonym for a very special magic.