"Alice in Wonderland may well be the most interpreted book in history, but there are always new depths to be plumbed. Bernard Patten dazzles us with his analysis of key episodes in the book. Like Lewis Carroll, Patten obviously loves logic and uses wit and humor to draw serious lessons about the principles of clear and logical thinking."

~CLARE IMHOLTZ
Secretary, Lewis Carroll Society of North America

Many commentaries have been devoted to Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The interpretations range from Freudian analysis to speculations about the real-life people who may have inspired the animal characters.

In this unique approach to interpreting Alice, the fruit of ten years of research, Dr. Bernard M. Patten shows that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, fused his passion for logic, mathematics, and games with his love of words and nonsense stories to produce a multifaceted, intricately structured work of literature. Patten provides a chapter-by-chapter skeleton key to Alice, which meticulously demonstrates how its various episodes reveal Dodgson’s profound knowledge of the rules of clear thinking, informal and formal logic, symbolic logic, and human nature.

As Patten makes clear, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, far from being just an entertaining children’s book, is more complex and deeply reflective of Dodgson’s character than it may seem. By making an effort to understand its deeper layers, both children and adults may profit from this masterful tale by learning to think better and, along the way, having fun.

Curiouser & Curiouser!