The annotated Alice

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland comes this richly illustrated and expanded collector’s edition of Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice. First appearing in 1960, The Annotated Alice became an instant classic by, among other things, decoding the wordplay and mathematical riddles embedded within Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece. As a result, Martin Gardner’s groundbreaking work went on to sell over a million copies, establishing the modest math genius as one of our foremost Carroll scholars. Now, on the sesquicentennial of Alice’s 1865 publication, comes this deluxe edition that combines all Gardner’s annotations with updates from his Knight Letter columns and correspondence with leading Carrollian experts. This gorgeous edition also includes over 100 new color and black-and-white illustrations, including images by Salvador Dalí and Barry Moser, which complement the original John Tenniel art. With close cooperation from the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and an introduction by its president emeritus, Mark Burstein, this authorized edition perfectly celebrates the legacy of both Martin Gardner and Lewis Carroll.

What Hacker News says

sreanMay 2026

Lewis Carroll, an Oxford Don with a double first degree, was such an interesting person, right from his study [0] of geometry, algebra [1], to his incessant word play and pioneering forays in the then new field of photography.

Anyone interested in this ought to read Martin Gardner's book Annotated Alice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Annotated_Alice

Let me add a few links that might be interesting:

Real Life Adventures of an Oxford Don https://www.csmonitor.com/1995/1120/20122.html

In the Shadow of the Dreamchild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Dreamchil...

How Lewis Carroll computed determinants https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2023/07/10/lewis-carroll-dete...

Condensation of Determinants, Being a New and Brief Method for Computing their Arithmetical Values https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37354/37354-pdf.pdf (cited by John D Cook in his article)

[0] Lewis Carroll's Mathematical works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll#Mathematical_wor...

[1] Dodgson condensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgson_condensation

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andrewlMay 2026

Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice explains the subtleties, mathematical and otherwise, of both Alice books in engaging detail. It explained things I never understood, and showed me things I missed (and then explained them). Besides the mathematics there are references to politicians and events of the era, and jokes that would be known only to people at Oxford.

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tmtvlNov 2024

53 days ago there was a thread about the best book we've ever read. As I have re-read the book this year I will link my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41758060

For a general recommendation for a book to buy for Christmas I'd say the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner is quite wonderful, if you'll pardon the pun.

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tmtvlOct 2024

'Bashō, dichter zonder dak' with the subtitle 'Haiku en poëtische reisverhalen' by professor Willy Vande Walle, a Belgian Japanologist. It's a translation of Basho's travel diaries with a lot of contextual information, kind of like Martin Gardner's 'The Annotated Alice', if you've read that one. It's an amazing intellectual tour de force by one of the foremost experts in his field, and it helps that the original works are of very high quality of well.

Unfortunately I don't know if there's an English equivalent, and considering how awful of a language Dutch is to learn it may be easier to learn Japanese, read the originals, and look up all the references yourself.

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simbolitNov 2023

It teaches you to think, and specifically to question conventional wisdom.

I don't need to "learn" programming anymore (and if I did, I would use something interactive, not a book), and thus not falling into rote monkey-coding, but questioning "what am I doing here?" and "how can this be done different ways?" are much more important.

Alice gives you that. I recommend Martin Gardner's "the annotated Alice", which explains a lot of things that us non-Victorians might have missed otherwise.

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thundermuffinJul 2023

Not only was he a mathematician, but Alice is considered partially a commentary on the state of mathematics at the time! [0] It's one of my (irrational) pet peeves that modern audiences often try to explain his books as some kind of Victorian era equivalent to a Cheech and Chong movie about drugs when there's so much more hidden away in the pages. These two books are my favorite books ever, and I'd give an arm and a leg if I could ever get my hands on an original copy, haha.

I highly recommend The Annotated Alice for anyone interested in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, because it makes a couple of fun, curious reads even curiouser! ;)

[0] https://www.npr.org/2010/03/13/124632317/the-mad-hatters-sec...

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