Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Top 10 books with secret signs

In 2008 Justin Scroggie named a top ten list of books with secret signs for the Guardian. One title on his list:
Lewis Carroll's Alice stories

Like Dan Brown, Carroll aka Charles Dodgson was an inveterate puzzler, and his books are full of tricks, anagrams and wordplay. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), the Dodo, for example, was a caricature of Carroll, who had a stutter and tended to introduce himself as Do-Do-Dodgson. In Through the Looking Glass (1871) , the poem A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky hides an acrostic message: the first letter of each line spells A-L-I-C-E P-L-E-A-S-A-N-C-E L-I-D-D-E-L-L. Disraeli is hidden in Tenniel's illustrations, sitting on a train in a paper hat.
Read about another book on his list.

The White Knight in Alice Through the Looking Glass is one of David McKie's top 10 eccentrics in literature. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland popped up on Mark O'Connell's list of ten of the best songs based on books.

--Marshal Zeringue