why is a raven like a writing desk?

By Neil Bant

`Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

Discovering 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'

Lewis Carroll's adventures into wonderland reveal some curiouser and curiouser facts which help to enlighten the reason why a raven is like a writing desk?

'Lewis Carroll' is a pen-name and a riddle in itself. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took his first and middle names, translated them into their Latin form 'Carolus Lodovicus' reversed the words and then translated them back into English.

Alice's character is based on a real-life girl named Alice Liddell. Charles Dodgson was on a boating trip with her and passed the time by telling her amazing stories. She asked him to write the story down so he did and created and illustrated a book for her called Alice's Adventures Underground. This book did not include a chapter about the Mad Hatters Tea Party.

Dodgson presented a copy of the manuscript to editor George MacDonald, who read it to his own children but needed it to be extended to subsequently be deemed worthy of publication. With the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatters Tea Party included and other revisions, the finished manuscript was nearly twice as long as the original!

It is easy to see how some chapters in Alice in Wonderland can simply be removed but it is weird to think that without this request we would nevar have had the Cheshire Cat or a Mad Tea-Party, including the March Hare, the Mad Hatter or Dormouse and the curious riddle 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' A riddle with a perceived 'no idea' answer that is left for the reader to ponder and multiple authors to propose an answer.

Charles Dodgson needed extra content and quickly so he would have pulled on his expertise as he was a logician he could simply apply his knowledge of mathematics into the story and create characters from people he knew. This notion assists to reveal the riddles answer and that his chapter is shown to be more about Time and mathematics which helps to solve the mystery of the riddle itself.

It has provided 150 years of puzzlement as to whether this riddle has an answer as originally set by Lewis Carroll or whether it was always intended to be a riddle with no answer. For Lewis to set a riddle and tease the audience at no answer seems illogical for Lewis was a logician and mathematician himself. It could be argued that he never intended an answer because wonderland was the opposite of being logical and provided pure escapism for him to write the story down in the first place.

But what if Lewis always intended the riddle to be solved. Could this be proved and what would the answer relate to?

Time for a T-Party;

Dodgson could have originally written this chapter as a way of mocking ideas that existed in mathematics in the 19th century. Carroll's ability to mix his background in mathematics and his interest in entertaining children via literature allowed him to explore and critique ideas via the fictitious Wonderland.

Maybe this chapter is more about the mad hatters T-Party, T being the symbol of Time in mathematics. Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865) was born in Dublin, an Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, who made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra. His studies of mechanical and optical systems led him to discover new mathematical concepts and techniques. His best known contribution to mathematical physics is the reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, now called Hamiltonian mechanics. In pure mathematics, he is best known as the inventor of quaternions.

Complex numbers work with two terms and quaternions belong to a number system based on four terms. Hamilton spent years working with three terms, one for each dimension of space, but could only make them rotate in a plane. When he added the fourth term, he got the three-dimensional rotation he was looking for, but he had trouble conceptualising what this extra term meant. He assumed this term had to mean something and stated in a footnote: "It seemed to me natural to connect this extra-spatial unit with the conception of time."

"What Hamilton said was if you take this time parameter out of these new numbers, then the numbers would just keep rotating around — they won't go anywhere," Devlin says. "It was just like the characters rotating round and round the tea party, round and round the table."

Devlin said "… a scholar in Oxford called Melanie Bayley wrote a complete dissertation analysing Alice In Wonderland, and she identified a number of mathematical allusions in the story."

Reading this chapter with Hamilton's quarternions, Melanie Bayley drew the comparison on Hamiltons work with the Mad Hatter Scene. It appears that the Hatter, Hare and Dormouse represent three terms of a quaternion, and the fourth term, time, is absent. Without Time the characters are stuck at 6 o'clock moving round the table in a rotation in a plane, just like Hamiltons attempts to calculate motion before the 4th dimension of time was added.

Immediately after the Mad Hatter asks Alice "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" an argument starts about semantics between the March Hare and Alice. After this distraction the next question the Mad Hatter asks is the March Hare for the time. In Wonderland time is different to the world above. The March Hare's watch measures the day of the month.

It is also observed that when the Mad Hatter provides the answer to the riddle as "I haven't the slightest idea!" the conversation continues to resume about time. Was the Hatter answering with a pun of 'Sly test idea!' Alice tells him he should not waste time asking riddles that have no answers.

Dame Gillian Beer, author of Alice in Space, explains, "Alice is exasperated by the riddle without an answer, Why is a raven like a writing desk? The lack of an answer infringes on all the rules of game time, so dear to Victorian middle class culture. Riddles rely on the pleasurable disappointment when the ingenious but usually inadequate answer is reached out of the universe of possible answers... ...such a riddle lacks closure."

The Mad Hatter calmly explains that Time is a "him" rather than an "it" and recounts how Time has been upset ever since the Queen of Hearts said the Mad Hatter was "murdering time" whilst singing badly so since then, Time has stayed fixed at six o'clock (tea-time).

'What a funny watch!' she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!'

'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does YOUR watch tell you what year it is?'

'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together.'

'Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter."

This means that there is no point in the Hatters watch telling the time, as it is always 6pm for such a long time. It's the days that change at the tea party not the minutes and hours.

The Hatter's riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" maybe a reflection of the theory of pure time by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, which argues that cause and effect are not linked. The idea of The Hatter's riddle being unsolvable by Hatter reflects the difficulty of understanding the concept of "pure time" that Hamilton proposes based on his mathematical research about Quaternions in abstract algebra.

It appears that Lewis Carroll could be hinting that the answer to the riddle is related to the properties of time in some way due to these conversations and the tea party challenges Alice's understanding of the fundamental concept of time. The Mad Hatter's answerless riddle reaffirms Wonderland's unusual sense of order. The riddle with no answer exists solely to perpetuate more confusion and disorder.

The story even concludes with a clue to the riddle answer in Alice's sisters daydream. The book tells us, "she could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal."

This is a final clue to indicate the riddle answer has Time related properties.

Back and forth;

The main theme of Alice in Wonderland is a story of growing up and changing as you get older. Alice through the story on trying to reach the garden goes through a series of shrinking and growing scenario's until she masters the ability to control her size by both sides of the mushroom.

When the Mad Hatter scene concludes the Hatter and Hare are stuffing the Dormouse into the teapot. If they could lose him, they could exist independently, as a complex number with two terms instead of three and be free from the pointless rotations around the table.

However in our world growing up cannot be reversed. We are always moving forth in time, unlike Wonderland. Is this a clue to the riddles answer?

Portmanteau;

Carroll enjoyed making new words by combining two words together. Carroll coined the term portmanteau to describe this as this word is made from two words itself. Just look it up in the dictionary and the definition is dedicated to his original idea. Have you observed that the Best Butter could have intended to be a reverse portmanteau of BETTER? This backwards portmanteau could have been intended to make the watch better, just like old wives tales and applying butter on bruises and burns.

It is also difficult to describe this reverse portmanteau word into one word that already exists and is satisfactory. I have taken to refer to this as a Partmanteau (a portmanteau of to Part & Portmanteau), and the Best Butter hiding the intended BETTER could be earliest documented example of a Partmanteau riddle! Is this a clue to our raven riddle answer needing to condense two words into one existing word to provide an answer?

Hierarchy;

In Wonderland the hierarchy and order of everything is back to front. Inanimate playing cards hold the power over animals. The queen utilizes living creatures as objects, playing croquet using hedgehogs and flamingos. Alice is also the lowest order taking orders from other animals. This role reversal versus our world could also hint at the answer to the riddle.

It is only as Alice realises that she holds the power of her dream illustrated by her growth to full size in the courtroom that she realises that Wonderland is a dream that she can awaken from, a strange journey that she can recount to her own children.

Lewis Carroll's answer;

Lewis Carroll himself wrote an answer or a clue to the riddles answer after being badgered by people since the book's original publication in the preface to the 1896 edition of his book:

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: 'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

Because of this other authors thought they could provide better answers to the riddle like both have inky quills and other answers below;

Edgar Allen Poe "wrote on" both the subject of a Raven and "wrote on" a physical writing desk.

Because Poe wrote on both. [Sam Loyd]

Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes. [Sam Loyd]

Because it slopes with a flap. [Cyril Pearson]

Because both have quills dipped in ink. [David Jodrey]

Because they both have two eyes. [Izumi Yasui]

Because there is a "B" in both. [E.V. Rieu]

In the film the Shining the answer was given as 'The Higher, the fewer of course' [Stephen King]

But what if Carroll was actually giving us a clue on how to solve the riddle, just like his other riddle poems he had written. Carroll loved riddles and would want someone else to solve it, without actually providing the correct answer, otherwise what was the point of setting a riddle in the first place.

In Phantasmagoria, and Other Poems (1869) and later in Rhyme and Reason (1883) Lewis Carroll included four riddles. The first two were double acrostics, where each verse has a word meaning and each verse provides a letter so the entire poem spells a word or meaning; the last two poems riddles were solved by charades, the whole verse being reduced to a single word. So Carroll was well versed in hiding meaning in his poems and statements by the time he wrote the answer to his riddle.

The answer to the riddle is like his other poem riddles where each sentence has a single word meaning – a charade.

'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat;'

This first sentence in a single word describes a 'letter'.

'and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!'

The second sentence in a single word is simply 'backwards'.

The word 'Letter' has a double meaning of one you send in the post or one in the alphabet.

Please note that his riddle answer on first publication had never intentionally misspelt with a letter 'a' which is Raven spelt with the wrong end in front. He was describing the word 'backwards' in his second sentence just like his other charade poems.

Why would Dodgson set a riddle and solve the real answer to the riddle by providing the answer before it had been solved? It is feasible that this was another riddle just like his poem riddles from 1869, just four years after Alice in Wonderland was first published. Having not been solved he could have intentionally misled but inadvertently provided a clue for the real answer by providing another riddle to be solved. It feels intentional that he used the phrase 'wrong end in front' rather than providing the simpler phrase of "nevar put backwards".

Jenny Woolf in "The mystery of Lewis Carroll" states, "He was extremely clever at saying exactly what he meant, yet not meaning what he appeared to say." An example of how he suggested you should comment on an ugly baby to a mother would be "Now there's a baby!" In the same way, his riddle answer is phrased in such a way, that it being another riddle makes complete sense, just like his Symbolic Logic riddles.

Carroll would also confuse with double meanings too. Just take the Hatters answer to the riddle. Most people would take the Hatters answer at face value and assume he didn't know the answer when he states "I haven't the slightest idea." , but as the verb 'got' is missing perhaps he meant the opposite double negative i.e. I have the greatest idea!

If you view Carroll's statement after his riddle answer, this is also ambiguous:

"This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all."

This could simply be from the Mad Hatters perspective as the Hatter asked the question and did not know the answer. The original purpose of the riddle was to provide a 'nonsense' no answer riddle to demonstrate the crazy world of wonderland. But this does not mean that Carroll literally had no answer himself.

In fact Carroll could simply be cross referring, 'Through the looking glass' as Alice thinks about the Red Queens world where they take many days together rather than one day at a TIME;

Alice was puzzled. "In our country," she remarked, "there's only one day at a time." The Red Queen said "That's a poor thin way of doing things. Now here, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and sometimes in the winter we take as many as five nights together— for warmth, you know.""Are five nights warmer than one night, then?" Alice ventured to ask. "Five times as warm, of course.""But they should be five times as cold, by the same rule——""Just so!" cried the Red Queen. "Five times as warm, and five times as cold—just as I'm five times as rich as you are, and five times as clever!"

Alice sighed and gave it up. "It's exactly like a riddle with no answer!" she thought.

Carroll intended the riddle to have 'no answer' but his 'afterthought' was likely to be how to create a riddle that when spoken explained the properties of TIME and only time would solve the riddle, not realising that it would be solved 150 years after it was first proposed. The Hatter being accused of murdering the TIME rather than just killing time, and hence the tea party being stopped at tea time, links back to the collective noun for a murder of Crows in the same Corvus family group as Ravens, although the collective name for Ravens is an Unkindness which is more fitting to the Hatters personal remarks about Alice's hair.

Logical algebra;

Alice's attempt to solve the riddle plays on an aspect of quaternions as their multiplication is non-commutative. This means that x × y is not the same as y × x

To Dodgson "algebra was all about numbers," Devlin says. But in the 19th century, people were developing strange new algebras, where x times y was not equal to y times x. Now, if you think logically about the construct of the riddle, "Why is X like Y?" then the answer would follow the pattern of "Because X is A and Y is A."

Alice's answers are also non-commutative resulting in the Hatter exclaiming: `Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

So we know based on this statement that the answer to the riddle could be non-commutative but provide logical explanation when solved.

Lewis gives us the clue that Raven said back to front is "Nevar". When we put this together with the story that we are always moving forward in time and growing up, you can construct a logical answer to the riddle.

So we have established the charade is 'letter, backwards' which when examining the mis-spelling is 'nevar backwards'. If X is 'nevar backwards', then logically Y is 'forwards'.

Riddles and Puns;

Before we continue to logically solve the riddle to its conclusion it should be explained about Carrolls obsession with language, puns and play on words used across Wonderland.

After eating their mints, the Mouse states that it will tell its tale. Alice confuses "tale" with his "tail".

Alice talking to the Cook brings up the earth's axis. The Duchess mishears Alice thinking she is talking about axes and shouts, "Chop off her head!"

The Mock Turtle's master was an old turtle named Tortoise because he "taught us." He studied a variety of unusual subjects, including Reeling and Writing (Reading & Writing) as well as Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division.)

The Mock Turtle explains that they were called lessons because they "lessen" each day. Later the Mock Turtle explains to Alice that it is unwise for a fish to go anywhere without a "porpoise" (pun on purpose).

So this shows Lewis Carroll's love of the English language and the puns that can be played out in a story. If there is an answer to the riddle then it would surely include a play on words.

So "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

This riddle is simply a pun on nevar backwards which means forwards. As soon as you say 'forwards' and change a LETTER just like in never, it is immediately apparent that a writing desk, not just any desk, is meant "for words" just like the example puns above.

"Because a raven is nevaR backwards and a writing desk is for Words."

Put more succinctly;

"One is nevaR backwards and one is for words".

Coming back to the charade of 'letter, backwards' it seems appropriate that both halfs of the answer have been misspelt to provide the answer to the riddle and 'for words' put together is just like the 'best butter'!

TIME solves the riddle;

This answer appears profound in its simplicity. Whilst Alice is moving forwards in time, the characters in "Wonderland" are moving backwards in time.

The point of Alice in Wonderland is that Alice is growing up, moving forward in time. Only in Wonderland is time itself either stopped for some characters at a perpetual tea time or travelling backwards in time.

One of the properties of complex numbers is that each number has a complex conjugate, a mirror image of itself reflected about the Real x-axis. Is it a coincidence that the second book is called Through the Looking Glass?

In Alice Through the Looking Glass we learn that time and distance are actually going back, so the days for the Hatta (not Hatter) go backwards, not forwards. This is a separate space-time to wonderland where only time is reversed not distance as well. And we have Jabberwocky poems that are written backwards to boot.

A raven (never backwards) and a writing desk (for words) indicates that time goes forwards in our world, which would explain why the Hatter does not know the answer to the riddle and hasn't "the slightest idea!" (sly test idea) as his world is either frozen in time as a punishment by time itself or moving backwards.

When the riddle has no answer, what Alice immediately discovers is that Time is a person and wonderland is a mad inverted place with the principles of the universe backwards.

Answers;

Ludwig Wittgenstein, a master of Logic like Dodgson once stated "If a question can be put at all then it can also be answered."

After quoting Carrolls answer to the riddle, Francis Huxleys book called "The Raven and the Writing Desk" questions "Is this a riddle of its own? ...For how could anyone put a raven with the wrong end in front?"

At the time of Huxleys publication in 1976 the nevaR correction had not been discovered, but he further postulated "That a statement made while looking backwards will have its wrong end in front."

It is helpful to see that a researcher like Huxley recognised that backwards had a part to play with the riddle answer. He also stated that 'If writing produces no less than Jabberwocky when seen in a looking-glass, what more does raven say when spoken backwards?'

It obviously pronounces nevaR and had he just connected nevar backwards to for Words, then the riddle could have had this answer 40 years sooner, through his studies. A backwards jabberwocky poem when put up to a looking glass universe mirror is also just like a nevaR backwards and forWords Raven writing desk riddle when seen in our universe, reflecting the properties of space and time.

On seeing this answer to the riddle for the first time, Jenny Woolf said, "I have read many attempts to solve the riddle but yours jumped out because it's exactly the kind of answer he would give. AND it works when spoken but not when written. (He drew on what he had said to the children in the Alice books, and, as he was very much a story teller rather than primarily a writer I would have expected it to be a riddle which worked when spoken.) Thirdly, his own written comment on the riddle was phrased in a way which instantly conveyed to me that it was not the solution but a clue."

We may 'nevaR' find a more logical and reasoned argument in discovering an answer to the riddle and if this was always Carroll's intension that someday the answer to the riddle would be explained, some 150 years in TIME after it was first set out in the story of Alice in Wonderland. Whether this answer to the riddle was originally intended or not, it seems clear that Dodgson created a convoluted riddle answer that not only answered the original riddle, but gave us a second riddle to solve to provide a much simpler intended answer. Such is the genius of the man.

Lewis Carroll wrote thousands of replies to fans that were full of puns, riddles, acrostic verses, charades, word play and anagrams. He sent letters that could only be read by looking in a mirror. Some even had words in the proper order but spelled backwards and others read entirely backwards, letter by letter. He even signed his name backwards in one letter. This is more evidence of him providing riddles within riddles.

What is amazing is that this was not the first time that this answer had been proposed independently. This answer was first proposed by Mary Hammond, author of The Mad Hatter, the Role of Mercury in the Life of Lewis Carroll and she said in an online article about the riddle on 20th August 2014;

"Why is a raven like a writing desk? Because that which is never backwards is always forwards, and a raven is nevar backwards, and a writing desk is always for words. If you knew a little bit about Carroll's habit of feeding out teasing clues bit by bit, you'd know that Carroll's statement that the riddle was not intended to have an answer was very similar in form to other little games he played. For those of you who are not familiar with the statement, it's in the form of "no meaning was originally intended, but if it was, hint, hint, and hint". I'm paraphrasing here, but I truly believe that if Carroll hadn't died so soon after making the statement, he would have given us more clues..."

An extract from Mary Hammonds book published earlier on 29th May 2014, the first time ever that this riddle answer was ever proposed concludes, "I persist in the belief that Lewis Carroll had an answer in mind when he wrote the raven-writing desk riddle, and that its genesis had something to do with Poe's poem 'The Raven' (as so many have suspected), and his Philosophy of Composition (which Carroll took so closely to heart). It may be an answer as cerebral as "because Poe wrote on both backwards", which is very close to one of the solutions ventured by the American puzzle and chess genius Sam Loyd, but realistically, as Carroll was writing for children, it is probably something pun-tastic like, because a raven is nevar backwards, and a writing desk is always for words."

Mary Hammond tried to get her thoughts acknowledged by the North American Lewis Carroll Society (see below) and wrote an article on her thoughts for submission for the Rectory Umbrella but she was denied publication. She then as Mary Hibbs, published a youtube video in October 2014 which argues that this answer is related to Poes poem on the Raven and how he wrote that backwards. See her short video on the idea here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEI9NuFzz_1oR4S6TyXmVvA

The hidden charade that Neil Bant spotted in Carroll's answer of 'Letter' and 'Backwards' in 2017, a year after his initial thoughts on the idea were published in Bandersnatch, is a final piece of the puzzle that provides further evidence for some to accept this as the intended answer by Charles Dodgson.

It would not surprise me at all, if one day someone discovers that Alices' sisters daydream conclusion was also editted to a 'never-ending meal' from an intended 'nevaR-ending meal', which would provide the absolute satisfaction that the riddle was intended to be solved.

"Your hair wants cutting," said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time..... Again The Hatter wanted 'some time' related answer to the riddle he then asked her! The word time is mentioned 18 times which is curious as the Tea Party is also stuck at 18:00, 6 o'clock tea-time for such a long time together!

This is the final clue to indicate the riddle answer has Time related properties.

If Time as a him were to set the Hatter a riddle to get out of the perpetual 'nevaR-ending' T-time, then surely the answer would be like the world they are imprisoned in and the answer would only ever be revealed by TIME himself;

Further Time and Space related evidence

I would like to mention the evidence in 'Through the looking glass'. Just before the Hatta is mentioned and the 10/6 image of parallel universe Hatta/Hatter imprisoned is the first time Alice is told that the world is backwards... It seems to fit in nicely with the intended riddle answer as a clue to the first Hatter riddle so help solve Why a Raven is like a writing desk? A giant crow has made the woods dark where Alice and the white queen converse;

"That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first—""Living backwards!" Alice repeated in great astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing!""— but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways.""I'm sure mine only works one way," Alice remarked. "I can't remember things before they happen.""It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked. "What sort of things do you remember best?" Alice ventured to ask. "Oh, things that happened the week after next," the Queen replied in a careless tone. "For instance, now," she went on, sticking a large piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke, "there's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all."

Then there is a picture of the hatta in chains with his 10/6 hat above him, a parallel universe of Hatter.

Alice becomes a pawn in the game of chess and discovers that Looking-Glass World closely follows the strict rules of chess. Alice can only move forward one "square" at a time. She cannot move backwards like the other pieces on the chessboard until she becomes queen. Isn't it fitting that the riddle 'Why is a pawn like a timepiece?', would also provide the same answer to the hatters riddle! It's interesting that 'looking glass world' is like a parallel universe to wonderland and our own world, with slightly different properties. Where wonderland is simply backwards, looking glass world is inverted and backwards. The mad hatter and Hatta are not the same person as they reside in a different space-time. If that does not convince you of hatters riddle answer is nevaR backwards, forWords, then perhaps this next discovery or co-incidence will.

I was on holiday in October 2018, staying at Eslington Hall in Northumberland. This is the residence of Lord and Lady Ravensworth (Linda Liddell). The Earl of Ravensworth was the brother of the Dean of Christ Church aka Alice Liddell's uncle.

Whilst staying there I noticed they had many pictures of the previous family home which subsided due to their coal mining close by. This was Ravensworth Castle which was the family home until the 1920s.

In Alice in wonderland, Alice had to think of everything she knew about Ravens and writing desks.

Well Alice Liddell would have known her uncle lived at Ravensworth Castle.

It then occurred to me that when are "Ravens worth castle"? Well in chess a castle is called a Rook, part of the Corvus family of birds that include Rooks, Ravens, Crows and Jackdaws. And guess what, a Rook can only move forwards and backwards and a writing desk is for words and a Raven is nevaR backwards! I'll come back to Rooks also moving sideways further below.

I left a note for Lady Linda with this thinking and attach a picture of my answer with a picture in the Hall of Eslington Hall of Ravensworth Castle.

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This personnalises the riddle answer for Alice Liddell. I wondered whether Carroll had taught Alice chess and whether he had been to Ravenworth Castle.

Futher evidence for this is published at the Lewis Carroll Society website. Alice Liddell herself later wrote in 1932:

"Much of Through the Looking-Glass is made up of them [i.e. 'stories told before the famous trip up the river to Godstow'], particularly the ones to do with chessmen, which are dated by the period when we were excitedly learning chess."

I also read that the Alice in rags picture was taken by Dodgson at Ravensworth grounds.

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This is all circumstantial, so is there anything in the text to link these thoughts together or a clue that Carroll left behind to link these chess movements together.

Perhaps a logician would describe a Rook as moving in straight latitude and longitude lines. I always wondered whether latitude and longitude tied in the the riddle and when you think about a Rooks movement in chess it travels in either of these directions. Arriving in wonderland the book says:

"Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say."

However, in the original manuscript of Alice Underground, Alice had 'no idea' rather than 'not the slightest idea' and this shows that Carroll has deliberately made this slightest change to tie in mad hatters 'haven't the slightest idea' wording!

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Compare this to the revised text:

"I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud. "I must be getting somewhere near the center of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think –" (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) "– yes, that's about the right distance – but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)

So why did Carroll want to link latitude and longitude to the riddle? I believe he used the repeat of 'the slightest idea' knowing that this tied everything together when the riddle is solved.

What appears fascinating and perhaps profound is that both Time and Space can be used to solve why a raven is like a writing desk as 'nevar backwards and for words'.

When taken with the two books it appears to me that Carroll was telling us about multi-dimensional space-time worlds, highlighting two alternative dimensions that Carroll travelled to in his mind when writing Wonderland and Looking-Glass worlds.

Perhaps only a logician mathematician could have documented Isaac Newton's multiverse concept from 1704 in such thrilling childrens stories.

Isaac Newton suggested the idea of a multiverse in his book, Opticks (1704).

"And since Space is divisible in infinitum, and Matter is not necessarily in all places, it may be also allow'd that God is able to create Particles of Matter of several Sizes and Figures, and in several Proportions to Space, and perhaps of different Densities and Forces, and thereby to vary the Laws of Nature, and make Worlds of several sorts in several Parts of the Universe. At least, I see nothing of Contradiction in all this."

Time Travel

In 'Sylvie and Bruno' there is a great time travel idea that seems similar to Carroll's thoughts on TIME in the Hatter chapter and mentions the forwards and backwards characteristics of time travel.

"I move the hands, I change the time. To move them forwards, in advance of the true time, is impossible: but I can move them as much as a month backwards—that is the limit. And then you have the events all over again—with any alterations experience may suggest.""What a blessing such a watch would be," I thought, "in real life! To be able to unsay some heedless word— to undo some reckless deed! Might I see the thing done?""With pleasure!" said the good natured Professor. "When I move this hand back to here," pointing out the place, "History goes back fifteen minutes!""

Alice's Hour

What is interesting is one of the suggested titles for this story by Carroll was "Alice's Hour in Wonderland" which would have fitted this TIME related story and riddle answer so nicely. He wrote the following letter;

I should be very glad if you could help me in fixing on a name for my fairy-tale, which Mr. Tenniell (in consequence of your kind introduction) is now illustrating for me, & which I hope to get published before Xmas.

The heroine spends an hour underground, & meets various birds, beasts & (no fairies) endowed with speech. The whole thing is a dream, but that I don't want revealed till the end. I first thought of "Alice's Adventures Under Ground," but that was pronounced too like a lesson-book, in which instruction about mines would be administered in the form of a grill: then I took "Alice's Golden Hour," but that I gave up, having a dark suspicion that there is already a book called "Lily's Golden Hours."

Here are other names I have thought of:

Alice among the { elves goblins

Alice's { hour doings adventures

in { elf-land wonderland.

Of all these I at present prefer "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." In spite of your "morality," I want something sensational. Perhaps you can suggest a name better than any of these.

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898)

Letter to Tom Taylor, signed and dated Christ Church, Oxford, 10 June 1864

Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?

NevaR Backwards And For Words

Even Carroll said "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."

Perhaps other hidden play on words exist. Why was the clock two days wrong? That's 48 hours wrong or perhaps it's a pun of "for tea ate hours". Why did Carroll use 42 often in his work? Is it because it's a pun of "for tea two" and two for tea. Perhaps Charles Dodgson and Douglas Adams are up there enjoying a pot together in the restaurant at the end of the universe!

Addendum

Mary Hammonds original and unpublished article submitted to the Lewis Carroll Society North America, included with permission below.

It's About Time

By Mary Hammond

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about Lewis Carroll's riddle, Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk? It's time that I can't get back again. Time, as Alice would say, that I might do something better with, time that might be better spent doing the laundry, playing games with the kids, or working a little harder on my next project. In that spirit, I'm not going to waste a lot of time discussing Lewis Carroll's 1896 statement that "the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all." As I am clearly in the minority in not taking this statement at face value, I will flatter myself and those nonconforming souls who agree with me, by saying that intelligent minds can and do differ on its meaning. When I read Carroll's statement, all I can see is a series of clues and phrases which are intentionally obscure, and just enough to tantalize. The statement, with which I am sure most Lewis Carroll aficionados are familiar, appeared in the preface of the 1896 Christmas edition of Alice, and read as follows,

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle (see p. 97) can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" This, however, is merely an after-thought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

If I were Lewis Carroll and I wanted to leave a clue to the answer I have in mind, these are the two clues I would leave, the why of which I will explain shortly. One thing that we can all agree on is that if Lewis Carroll's riddle did have an answer, it would be satisfying. Of course, in order to displace the current majority opinion that the lack of meaning is itself a brilliant thematic statement, it would have to be very satisfying. And, because the entire tea party is about time—from Alice's statement that the Hatter ought to find a better way to spend his time, to the beating, measurement and manipulation of time, to the way the party moves around the table consuming everything and moving on, to the tongue and cheek way the jury at the trial of the Knave of Hearts takes the three dates given in evidence as to when the Hatter began his tea, adds them up and reduces them to shillings and pence—to be very satisfying, the answer to the riddle would have to be about time as well.

Lewis Carroll would return to the theme of time, and how important it is that we spend it wisely, again and again over the course of his career. It was a message which Carroll, as a member of the clergy, was intent on preaching, and one which he tried to state more clearly as he grew older and felt his own time was growing short. In his 1893 Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Carroll went as far as to include a little lesson in which his Professor demonstrated to a grown-up Sylvie how a magic Fortunatus' purse might be constructed inside out so that all the wealth of the world might be found "inside" it, and then chided Sylvie that no amount of money could buy another moment of precious time, the real treasure.

Starting with the proposition that if the riddle has an answer, it is about time, and working backwards through Lewis Carroll's clues, if they are clues, we come to Carroll's first "fairly appropriate answer", that a raven is like a writing desk because "it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat." This answer fits nicely with the tea party discussion about killing and beating time, as flat notes, or bad singing, had been wittily referred to as murdering the time ever since a Covent Garden orchestra leader pushed to the breaking point by the particularly bad singing of an otherwise talented actor, burst out "Kemble, Kemble, you are murdering the time!" The man assaulted by this outburst won the hearts of many with his retort, which formed the basis of as anecdote so well loved that it was published again and again through Carroll's lifetime, "Very well, Sir, and you are forever beating it" or, in variation as, "I had better murder it at once than be continually beating it as you are." I believe that this clue is meant to remind the reader of Alice and the Hatter's conversations about beating and quarreling with time.

The second suggestion, that a raven is like a writing desk because it is "nevar put with the wrong end in front" is, in my opinion, the most meaningful evidence that Carroll's statement is actually a series of clues, as, cute and clever as it is, it is missing the corresponding writing desk association. Moving forwards, "put with the wrong end in front" is a curious phrase, an incongruously roundabout way of saying backwards. Nevar is in fact italicized in order to draw our attention to the fact that it is the word raven, backwards.

Carroll's fascination with backward ravens can be traced back to Edgar Alan Poe's 1846 essay, The Philosophy of Composition, in which Poe detailed the way in which he had written The Raven backwards.

We don't know when Carroll became familiar with Poe's essay, but considering that the teenaged Lewis Carroll actively aspired to be a writer, it is possible that he was exposed to Poe's essay as early as age 14, and that he had as many as 19 years within which to reflect on backward ravens, and ravens that were nevar backwards, and of what might be, as a logical equivalent, always forwards, before he crafted his raven writing desk riddle.

So, why is a raven like a writing desk?

Not just any desk, mind you, but a writing desk? Because a ravens is nevar backwards and a writing desk is always for words. It's cute, yes, and it fits the riddle, but the proof we are all left wanting after so many years of cute riddle answers is that this answer is not just another punning play on words, but it's about time, time, which moves always forwards, and never backwards. That's right. In my decidedly, for the time being, minority opinion, the answer to the riddle is not the absolute answer, but a clue to the actual answer, placed to set the opening scene of the tea party by an obscure and meticulous genius with a moral in mind. And, as Lewis Carroll himself would later write, "There is always a moral if you choose to look for it."

I hope you have enjoyed the time you have spent perusing my riddle answer. If I have won you over, I would like to welcome you to the minority position. Someday, perhaps, the balance will tip. Time will tell. In the meantime, don't even get me started on the riddle of the 10/6 tag on the hatter's hat band. I would wager that it is a reference to Benjamin Franklin's "Time is Money" Advice to a Young Tradesman essay—in which 10 shillings earned and 6 pence spent plays a prominent role—but really, I don't want to gambol away any more of my precious time.

Mary Hammond is the author of The Mad Hatter, the Role of Mercury in the Life of Lewis Carroll.