Alice

That July 4 is the anniversary of the 1776 signing of the American Declaration of Independence from Britain may at best draw a yawn from anyone not born in or living in America.  Other stuff happens on July 4, even if we American's are too busy to notice.

For instance, on this date in 1862 Reverend Charles Dodgson and Reverend Robinson Duckworth, rowed up the Isis River, near Oxford England with the three daughters of Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church,  Lorina (13) Alice (10) and Edith (8).  To amuse the children during their journey Dodgson told the girls a story, a story of a bored little girl who goes looking for adventure.  The girls loved the tale and asked Dodgson to write it down for them.  He began the manuscript the next day although he did not present the children with " Alice's Adventures Under Ground" until November 1864.

Pleased by the girl's reaction, Dodgson, writing as Lewis Carroll, went to work preparing Alice's tale for publication, expanding his story and illustrations.  The world finally met Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in November 1865.

Happy Independence Day friends!

Toad

Puzzles

Do you enjoy puzzles?

Mrs. T and her children are great puzzlers, their patron saint is Will Shortz. Crossword, science, game, math puzzles rock their worlds. I prefer a good detective novel and the occasional Sudoko. What does fascinate me though are puzzle creators, and the mad men and women who spend their lives searching for the hidden meanings behind books, most of us read only for entertainment.

Mother Goose nursery rhymes are historical fact? Who knew.

My patron, Martin Gardner, died this week at age 95. In over 70 books, Martin explored the arcane, the weird, and the unusual in straight forward, non-jargoned prose.

He was the foremost scholar of Lewis Carroll's, Alice novels. In 3 books (The Annotated Alice (1960), More Annotated Alice, in 1990 and a definitive edition combining his notes from both volumes in 1999.) He explored, named names and explained the riddles, puns, jokes and hidden meanings of the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat and all the other oddball characters.

For half a century Gardner's book has never been out of print, selling more than a million copies in Britain and the United States. He also produced The Annotated Snark (1962), The Annotated Ancient Mariner (1965) and The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown (1987), about GK Chesterton's fictional detective.

"I give the impression of knowing far more than I do," he once admitted, "because I work hard on research, write glibly and keep extensive files of clippings on everything that interests me." Naturally, he was an accomplished exponent of the musical saw.

He shall be missed.

Toad