Decoding Wonderland

The 19th century author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), created works that melded fiction, poetry, mathematics, games, logic and cryptography. This talk explores Dodgson’s use of puzzles and games, word play, and the creation of a cipher language to create iconic children’s tales, such as Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. In August and December 2014, Abby taught a Freshman Micro-Seminar titled “Decoding Wonderland: Puzzles, Logic and Cryptography in the Works of Lewis Carroll.” Through hands-on exploration of rare materials from the Cassady Lewis Carroll Collection in USC Libraries’ Special Collections, students investigated how language, logic and games played an important role in this 19th century author’s life and work.