Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and What the Tortoise Said to Achilles and Other Riddles

By Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is a novel that tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures. The tale is filled with allusions to Dodgson's friends. The tale plays with logic in ways that have given the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. It is considered to be one of the most characteristic examples of the genre of literary nonsense, and its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential, mainly in the fantasy genre. The second part of this books contains Lewis Carroll's short dialogue "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" (1895) playfully questions the principles of logic. Problems arise and branch out from Zeno's paradox that begins with Achilles attempting to pass the tortoise in the race, but ultimately failing to do so through the tortoise's clever arguments. This is an entertaining tale of the ultimate race that cannot be completed using the foundations of logic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
• Release date: Feb 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9780882408712

Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) was an English children’s writer. Born in Cheshire to a family of prominent Anglican clergymen, Carroll—the pen name of Charles Dodgson—suffered from a stammer and pulmonary issues from a young age. Confined to his home frequently as a boy, he wrote poems and stories to pass the time, finding publication in local and national magazines by the time he was in his early twenties. After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1854, he took a position as a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, which he would hold for the next three decades. In 1865, he published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, masterpiece of children’s literature that earned him a reputation as a leading fantasist of the Victorian era. Followed by Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), Carroll’s creation has influenced generations of readers, both children and adults alike, and has been adapted countless times for theater, film, and television. Carroll is also known for his nonsense poetry, including The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and “Jabberwocky.”