On July 4th, 1862, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took the three daughters of his good friend, Henry Liddell, on a little rowing excursion. During the journey, the young girls pressed him for a story. It was on this trip that the beginning of the now famous Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland started to form. It would be published in 1864, under his penname Lewis Carroll.

Carroll’s story is a perfect example of the Literary Nonsense sub-genre, where it “balances elements that make sense with some that do not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning.” Make sense, right? I honestly just love the fact that there is an actual sub-genre called Literary Nonsense! But let’s get back to our mission. Continue reading →