A Tangled Tale

A Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll A Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll A Tangled Tale is a collection of 10 brief humorous stories by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), published serially between April 1880 and March 1885 in The Monthly Packet magazine. Arthur B. Frost added illustrations when the series was printed in book form. The stories, or Knots as Carroll calls them, present mathematical problems. In a later issue, Carroll gives the solution to a Knot and discusses readers' answers. The mathematical interpretations of the Knots are not always straightforward. The ribbing of readers answering wrongly - giving their names - was not always well received. In the December 1885 book preface Carroll writes: The writer's intention was to embody in each Knot (like medicine so dexterously, but ineffectually, concealed in the jam of our early childhood) one or more mathematical questions - in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be - for the amusement, and possible edification, of the fair readers of that magazine. Describing why he was ending the series, Carroll writes to his readers that the Knots were "but a lame attempt." Others were more receptive: In 1888 Stuart Dodgson Collingwood wrote, "With some people, this is the most popular of all his books; it is certainly the most successful attempt he ever made to combine mathematics and humour." They have more recently been described as having "all the charm and wit of his better-known works". We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.