Lewis Carroll Books

The flaws are many. The "editing" doesn't extend much beyond cutting and pasting a lot of material together. There are zero editorial comments, although there were places where judicious comments would have been helpful. The footnotes are all, I believe, from the original sources, which are generally other collections. For instance, if the book quotes Herodian, the bibliography will cite, not the text of Herodian, but something like, "Great Texts on Ancient Rome" or something. So primary texts were usually not the sources. (The book contains nothing but excerpts from primary texts, but the editor got these excerpts from secondary sources.)

And yes, as someone else has pointed out, the translations are sometimes shaky.

Also, the word "Eyewitness" is frequently a misnomer. One of the most frequently cited authors is Tacitus, for instance, who was by no means an eyewitness to the things he wrote about. Nor was Suetonius, nor Ammianus Marcellinus, nor Cassius Dio, nor Appian. Even Cicero was writing about things that he hadn't actually witnessed in a lot of cases.

However, having said all that, this is a fun book to read because of one strong aspect of the editing, and that was selection of material. Most of the texts included here are terrific, from Pliny's account of the eruption of Vesuvius, to humorous letters written by various people (to name just a few things). You really get a broad cross-section of Roman society across the centuries.

One thing to note is that a complete novice to Roman history and culture would probably be frustrated by this book. I don't discourage the novice from giving the book a shot, but if you don't know who Cicero was, and Cato and Caesar and Antony and Octavian and Agrippa and Vitellius and Domitian and Trajan and Josephus and Alaric and on and on, not to mention the historical backgrounds of each, then you'll feel somewhat lost reading this book, because it does cover a huge amount of historical ground in a mere 500 pages. If you're motivated to learn, then this will be an excellent book. If you're interested more in casual reading, you might not like it.

This Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Ancient Rome, edited by Jon Lewis, is really about the same size as a Viking Portable, so the title overstates the reality. At the same time, the book does collect a wide variety of Roman writings from all phases of its development and collapse. I've never before run across the Twelve Tables(450) BCE, anonymous rituals, Josephus, St. Augustine, Hannibal, Pliny, Suetonius, Marcus Aurelius, Horace, Caesar, Cicero, Juvenal, Constantine and too many others, known and anonymous, to name, all in one volume. It's main problem is that some of these translations are so hoary it's hard to imagine anyone ever expressed themselves in such convoluted and ornate language. Hannibal's speech to his troops is a prime example: it is unlikely his troops would have understood what he said, much less been motivated to valor, if he actually talked like he does in the translation here. Most of the pieces are good enough, though. It's fun to browse through, to get a peek at what Romans thought of themselves, and ordinary things they did, as well as great ones. The chronology at the front is very handy, too.

I really enjoyed this book because it wasn't just a bunch of impersonal historical facts piled into one book. These are writings and historical accounts from those who were present at the time the history was being made. This book gives a unique perspective about the Roman Empire that most history books don't.

Lewis Carroll was in "real life" Charles Dodgson, lecturer in mathematics at Oxford University and author of books on geometry and logic. Mathematics intrudes into his children's books, especially Sylvie and Bruno. There is nobody better qualified to explain this side of Lewis Carroll to the non-mathematician than Martin Gardner, author of the Annotated Alice and for many years the compiler of the Mathematical Puzzles column in Scientific American. This book will delight Carroll's many fans and may intrigue many who would not normally be attracted to children's fiction. I also recommend the two books on Lewis Carroll's puzzles by Edward Wakeling; as a professional mathematician, he brings a complementary perspective.

The Editorial has single handedly solved a modern dilemma in the world of Mathematics. I do believe it has been said that it is better to be assumed a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt. The final conclusion is that the contradiction leads us to realize a possible incompleteness in the system. Here is how:

Solution #1 As the state of the bag, after the operation, is necessarily identical with its state before it, the chance is just what it was, viz. 1/2. Solution #2 Let B and W1 stand for the black or white counter that may be in the bag at the start and W2 for the added white counter. After removing white counter there are three equally likely states:

Inside bag------Outside bag
W1--------------W2
W2--------------W1
B ---------------W2

In two of these states a white counter remains in the bag, and so the chance of drawing a white counter the second time is 2/3. This contradiction of the first solution might indicate that the system offers an incomplete answer (not that the first answer was wrong).

Ok, since there is some confusion on the issue, let me explain how the 2/3 comes about. We are looking for the probability that the second marble is white, given that the first one pulled out of the bag was.

First intuitively - if you think about it, if there had been 2 white marbles in the bag to start with you're more likely to have pulled out a white marble on the first draw than you would have if the bag started with one white and one black. That is, knowing that you pulled out a white marble, it's more likely that both marbles were white than it is that there was one of each.

Now mathematically - this is called conditional probability. Because of the problem description, before drawing the bag could either contain one of each color or two white marbles, each of these options with probability .5 (50%). If the bag has one of each, your probability of drawing white first is .5, and if it has two whites your probability of drawing white first is 1 (100%).

So, the (compound) probability that the bag has one of each *and* you get white first is .5 x .5 = .25 and the probability that the bag has both white and you get white first is .5 x 1 = .5. So, the total probability of getting white first is the sum of the probabilities of these two possible ways of that occuring, .75.

Now, the actual probability that was requested was that of there being a white marble in the bag after taking out a white one...that is, what's the probability of the bag having had 2 white marbles if you know it had at least one. This should be the same as the probability of getting two white marbles divided by the probability that the first marble was white.

Probability notation for this conditional probability is
P(W2|W1) = P(W1 & W2)/P(W2)

Which then is .5/.75, which is equal to 2/3 - the number given in the editorial. The result does maybe initially seem to be a strange number, but there is no wiggle room here. It's correct.

This book is great if you have an imagination.

It started out as a normal day for Alice, until she saw a rabbit with a watch cross her path saying " Im late Im late". She decided to follow the rabbit through a whole in a tree. She fell for what seemed to be hours until she landed in a house. There she saw some beans on the table in which she ate and then she kept growing and growing. Well to make a long story short Alice made many friends and enemys in Wonderland and she had to leave them all after finding the key to take her back home

I have always been a tremendous fan of Alice in Wonderland, but I wasn't too fond of Tenniel's artwork. Plus, the books I had found hadn't printed the illustrations very well (they were always dark and smudged). Then I found this edition of Lewis Carroll's classic, and I was extremely pleased! Rackham's artwork left me speechless. I adored the simple pen-and-ink illustrations to the full-page paintings. This is a splendid book to own if you enjoy the original story and want new illustrations to admire.

Alice in Wonderland is a great book that I truly enjoyed. I like how the author made something symbolize something else. For example, the rules of the game they were playing symbolized the actual rules of the land. Even though this book is intended for kids to read but I say it is a book for all ages.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an unabridged audiobook production of Lewis Carroll's classic children's storybook of a young girl lost in a magical land of fantasy. Read aloud by Grammy and Audie Award-winning performer Jim Dale, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a delightful performance that adroitly captures this whimsical spirit of the story. Highly recommended as a giftbook to listeners of all ages, as well as for public library audiobook collections. 3 CDs, 2 hours 57 minutes.

I haven't yet bought this. I have other Jim Dale narrations and find his performances consistently excellent.

I had a quick question before I buy this.

Does this recording include Through the Looking Glass as well ? The description on Amazon does not specify that.

At its core, this novel is a parody of Charles Dodgson's (aka Lewis Carroll's) "Alice" books, but threaded through the footnotes and annotations, Bradley Craddock also tells the story of Lewis Swanson, a fictitious contemporary and rival of Dodgson. It is this added layer of complexity that elevates the novel above simple parody. The result is a depiction of Victorian England that is, in many ways, more amusing than the underground world that Alice is exploring. In lesser hands, such storytelling would falter on its own conceits, but in this book Craddock shines as a chameleon of letters, breathlessly metamorphosing between literary styles at a captivating (if somewhat dizzying) pace. If a complaint is going to be raised against this book, it is that the author clearly likes the sound of his own voice. Fortunately the writing is just so damn good that this indulgence is a virtue rather than a sin.

This novel is one of the freshest and most relaxing I have read in years. It has moments of wryness, and moments of literal laughing out loud. I caught so many 'in jokes' referring to novels and events and movies outside of the novel, that I just know there are more laughs to be had.

Whatever you do, do NOT skip the lengthy introductions--- they are part of the joke...

Nice pictures. I guess the children found it fun to pose for the more dramatic looking ones specially in those far off days when photography was so unfamiliar. The pictures have a real period charm, and are a contrast to the usual stiff Victorian photos. They are art not just photography.

The idea of publishing this selection of Lewis Carroll's photographs of his "child friends" is a perfectly fine one. The only drawback I can find is that there is only one picture of the very photogenic and beautiful Alexandra "Xie" Kitchin. She should be far better represented in this set of pictures.

Apart from this, the set gives us a nicely varied selection: The famous profile shot of Alice Liddell sitting sideways on a chair, pretty little Amy Hughes looking off dreamingly. Far from all of Carroll's child models smile, probaply due to the long time the exposure took back then, and the discomfort of holding the same facial expression for what must have feelt like a long time. One exception is the adorable little Beatrice Henley, who back in 1862 posed for the picture in this set. It is also refreshing to see Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson's pen name) very often breaking out of the traditional ways of posing: There is Dymphna Ellis standing on a ladder, looking off. Lying down, or even sleeping (or pretending to) is another favorite pose which Carroll liked, and that too is represented in this set. Those pictures has an true timeless charm which I, at times, find almost breathtakingly beautiful. Please let us have another set!

Just a brief note to add to the already insightful reviews here: When read as a retelling of George Eliot's Middlemarch, the book takes on yet another dimension. Carol is a modern Dorothea. Also, none of the previous reviews I read mentioned how beautiful some of Lewis's prose is in this work. There are many truly beautiful passages worth reading just in themselves.

I wish I had read this in high school as it was undoubtedly on our reading list. I had confused Sincliar Lewis with the Upton Sinclair (a common confusion I suspect) muckracker novels which didn't appeal to me. How wonderfully Main Street captures the arrogance of youthful certainty about how others should improve themselves or, in this case, the town. If you like movies of the 1930s, you will like this book's dialogue style. This book is not an easy read as one sometimes needs to reread a paragraph to determine whether it is inner thoughts or dialogue, but the book offers a fascinating peek at the issues of the time and how they were viewed by many Americans. Many of those issues and attitudes linger on. Carol's quest to make a difference is a timeless quest that is no more easily solved today than it was then.

I feel like every book I read is time I literally have to steal from the rest of my life. I feel resistance to my reading habits- from my job, my wife, etc. It's like I have to fight for every moment for every single book that I want to read. I guess that makes it more rewarding, but it also means that my reading habits have acquired a patina of guilt- like I'm a drug addict. That's how I feel about it - that I have to keep it secret, that I have no one to share it with, that I am isolated and alone when it comes to my reading habit. It's a small part of my life, but a distinct one.

Main Street was an epic commerical success when it was released in the 20s. It's an odd choice for a commerical blockbuster, but Lewis must have captured the zeitgeist- I see it kind of like an American take on existenalism. Primitive, rudimentary, but accurate and complex in its own way. Main Street tells the story of Carol Kenicott, who marries a small town Doctor from Minnesota in the first fifty pages and then spends the rest of the book bitching and moaning about the vagaries of small town life- with it's close mindedness and preachy intolerance.

After this book "Main Street" entered the American lexicon as a short hand for a collection of attitudes that embodied small town america- and a negative anallysis of those attitudes, but Lewis's book is more sympathetic to small town america then one might expect.

The true hero of this book is Doctor Kennicott- who puts up with wife Carol's complaints with barely a whimper. As for the attitudes of main street- I think all of America, with maybe a few big city exceptions, resembles Main Street- Lewis notes that many of the people in his fictional Minnesota town left for southern california, so in that way I think this is a useful book to read for "blue staters" when they are trying to understand what makes the "red state" world tick.

"Is it really my failure, or theirs?"

Carol Kennicott asks herself this question nearly 250 pages into "Main Street," regarding her impossible relations with the residents of the town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. By this time, I was asking a similar question: "Is it really my failure, or Sinclair Lewis's?"

"Main Street" seemed a good idea as it sat on my shelf. Touted as a satirical look at middle-class America, it was Lewis's first successful novel, ushering in a new era upon its publication in 1920, and breaking critical ground for the Golden Age of American Literature, of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. How could I go wrong picking it up?

The book tells the interminable story of Mrs. Kennicott, who marries a country doctor while imagining herself an improving influence on his as-yet-unseen town of Gopher Prairie. Imagine her surprise when she is greeted not as a liberator but grist for the gossip mill, with her Big City ideas and lack of churchiness.

Carol's alternating turns of resistance and acceptance are about the sum total of this plotless book. Lewis's descriptive powers are much in evidence, and you find yourself trapped in G.P. as much as Carol, his descriptions of noisy neighbors and smug dinner parties bearing the unmistakable imprint of someone who grew up in small-town Minnesota and knew of what he wrote. The problem, when you get past the period slang and the barbed commentary, is that the subjects of Lewis's satire are so miserable and nasty you can't understand why Carol thinks she can change them, except perhaps with the idea nature couldn't possibly create people as one-dimensional as those found here.

I thought I'd never read a duller work about small-town Americana from the early 20th century than Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." My apologies, Thornton. "Main Street" is as down on the same locale that "Our Town" exults, only Lewis lays on derision with a dripping trowel. Wilder, by contrast, seems almost surgical in the delicacy with which he makes his points. Lewis makes sure that when he presents us with the atheistic radical Miles Bjornstam, he is not only a voice of reason and affability to Carol but ultimately run out of town for his beliefs on the heels of having suffered a great tragedy, just in case we didn't otherwise get how miserable a town Carol is stuck in.

"And you want to reform people like that when dynamite is so cheap?" Carol fumes early on.

There is one effective section in the book, when Carol first discovers how isolated she has become and feels the "moist, fleering eyes" of prying neighbors so powerfully she draws down her window shades. Passages with her husband, the stolid, straying, but not worthless Dr. Kennicott, present some desperately-needed ambiguity.

But the book just keeps going, hammering home the same points, before winding down with an ending that feels more like a cop-out, in which the still-radical but more placid Carol settles for the status quo while imagining her sleeping infant daughter as "a bomb to blow up smugness." Polemics can produce great writing, but seldom great literature, and "Main Street" is a case in point.

The Signet Classic edition from 1998 features an introduction by Thomas Mallon which was the most enjoyable part of the book, candidly pointing out the book's faults but arguing for its continued value, as it imagines Carol's experience being like that of a young Hillary Rodham first arriving in Little Rock. Suffice to say I had a lot more fun reading it than I did the rest of this book.

"The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was." Thomas Carlyle

Like in his other classic works (i.e. "Elmer Gantry", "Babbitt", etc...) Sinclair Lewis seems to relish the role of ripping apart the hypocritical world of mid-America in early 20th century society. This story takes place near the time it was written (circa 1920), and features the trials and tribulations of our main protagonist Mrs. Carol Kennicott. Carol is a young, pretty woman who moves to a small town in Minnesota after marrying the local doctor there. The moment she arrives to this little, quaint, prairie village she is immediately disappointed by not just the ennui of small-town life, but more importantly, by the total lack of culture concerning everything from the town-folk to the architecture (or lack thereof) of the city buildings. Carol is a liberal woman full of a tremendous passion for life, and a mind that seems constantly over sated with grandiose ideas all aimed at one thing - bringing culture to this narrow-minded, provincial population. However, her gallant efforts are not met with open arms by these simple folk. And that's putting it very lightly! She is instead quickly seen as an outcast, and soon endures all of the gossip, greed, pettiness, bigotry, etc... by the closed minded local yokels.

Now I know that from that brief synopsis above, you wish to immediately feel sympathy for our heroine, after all, she is a woman way ahead of her time and she is only trying to help these simple folk improve themselves. However, despite her noble intentions, Carol is far from without her own faults. She is very pretentious, judgmental, opinionated, hard to please, and she tends to give up very easily. In other words, once she begins a new endeavor she rarely ever sees it through from beginning to end because at the very first sign of difficulty, no matter how benign, she ends up quitting and starting all over with a new goal on how to improve her town. This is because, like many people who are extreme and myopic in their politically, social, religious, etc... views they are idealistic to a fault. The beauty of Lewis is that he creates characters that are completely human. She is a woman who we love and admire because of all of her wonderful qualities; however, at the same time she frustrates the hell out of us with her over simplified views and beliefs, as well as her snobbish, showy ways.

At the end of the day, poor Carol Kennicott was born in the wrong time at the wrong place. She also married the wrong man (although, that is more of the norm with most people). Lewis describes her early on as being "a woman with a working brain but no work." If you can imagine a woman who is a cross between Emma Bovary and Hillary Clinton (and even that may be oversimplifying things!) you'll get the feel of the type of person you're dealing with. This is one Sinclair's most complex characters in my opinion and it's impossible to read this novel and not find this character totally intriguing.

Some people accused this novel of being boring and a difficult read at times, nothing can be farther from the truth in my opinion. However, I love satire and also stories about good people, who are not sans their own imperfections and shortcomings. On top of being a brilliant satirist, I also really enjoy the thorough way Lewis develops his characters, especially in this story. If there is one complaint that I can see a lot of people having with this one it would be the way the novel ended. However, for me, it was a very realistic ending and I am pleased that it refrained from any overt moralizing or getting to syrupy like many stories often do.

This one is unquestionably right up there with his best! ENJOY!

I was expecting a quality product from this 'deluxe' edition. From the outside it looks solid, but the pages are made of see-through paper, thinner than from a dictionary.. Not only does it undo the advantages of a hard cover, leather bound etc, but it also ruins the many drawings inside the book. Of course the internet-customer is ignorant of this quality aspect until the book arrives in his/her own disappointed hands.

I This ordered this item back in Oct. It is now Feb, and I have not yet gotten my book. I just keep getting email telling me that the deliver date has been moved back. This has to be among the worse service I have ever got from from a retailer. As for the book, I really can't say anything about it because I haven't got it yet.

'The Complete, Fully Illustrated Works, Deluxe Edition' of lewis Carroll's works may actually be more than you really want. While three of Carroll's works, the two Alice fantasy novels and the long poem, 'The Hunting of the Snark' are major classics of English literature, Carroll wrote an equal or greater amount of pretty dull stuff, primarily the two 'Sylvia and Bruno' novels, which I have never been able to finish.

On the plus side, the fact that this edition is 'fully illustrated', meaning that it has both John Tenniel's illustrations for the Alice stories AND Henry Holiday's illustrations for 'Snark'. Even so, you may just be better off buying just the annotated versions of the Alice stories and the annotated Snark.

Forewarned is forearmed!

This book is really for the person who is really into Carroll and will read through all of his works. It's a thick volume and is useful to me, but this is because i am writing a book so i'm probably not the best judge since i have to read all of the collected works.

Another astute reviewer said, "Do you really want all of the collected works?" But for the price, i say, you may as well buy the book, then you can see what you like and skip around. Who is to say or dictate that you must read cover to cover. You may find there are writings of Caroll thatyou didn't know about before - such as his poetry and so on.

I own the book and find it very handy for reference but also as a genral book of interst. It's also a good gift book for adults and children alike and is a handsome volume and is not muddled up with annotations like many of Carroll's books are these days, which is fine, but more for the scholar. This is the perfect book to dip into and again, a good gift book and as a former publisher i can tell you that the price-point is excellent for what you get here. A bargain.

If you like Carroll's Alice books, you may as well buy this since it will cost you more or as much to buy both of them. This way, you get both Alice books and then some. There is an argumnt right there.


sadi ranson-polizzotti

I ordered this item in September 2005, and after multiple extensions, Amazon let me know last week (Feb 2006) that this item was no longer available. They should be taking this item off their listing -- it is a great book to have, but regrettably unavailable.

If you enjoyed this author's writings, and you live in New York, I URGE you to buy tickets to TRYST, now playing at the Promedade Theatre. She has composed a brilliant, lyrical, bitter, honest, and ultimately surprising bit of period drama. The story is masterfully directed and acted by it's two-person cast, but the real star is the writing. It felt strange to applaude the actors alone, as I wanted to contratulate the play-write! I thought I had it all figured out by the end of act one, only to find myself on the edge of my seat all through act two as the characters unravel. See her play, Tryst, at the Promenade Theatre. It is not to be missed!

I cannot believe that many take this book seriously when it is based on such scanty. flimsy "evidence" which calls for HUGE assumptions by the author. You also don't write a historical theses by picking and choosing what facts to include or ignore. I will now, in a very short comment, blow her thesis out of the water....Nothing in the diary page that Ms. Leach quotes from proves anything, and is greatly taken out of context. She totally ignores more obvious evidence to the contrary, other letters, diary entries, and the words of Carroll himself! While it is nice that she jumps off the Carroll as pedophile band-wagon, it is not enough to, under the guise of scholarship, make so much from so little...

While many people in Oxford thought Carroll's attentions to be for the governess, this was understandable because to think of a grown Oxford don in love with the Dean's daughter was more far fetched.

However, Mrs. Liddell and Carroll himself didn't think so....

Carroll in his later diaries mentioned a long talk with Mrs. Liddell after Alice's marriage, where he admits to his "foolish" ways (toward Alice) in the past, and his subsequent estrangement from the Deanery. During that talk, Mrs. Liddell forgives him. (note: that with Alice's marriage, she didn't view Carroll as the "threat" he once was)

Ina, Alice's sister in letters to Alice before her death , mentions that she always thought Dodgson was in love with her sister, and when Alice denies this, Ina points out the many times she had been sitting inappropriately on Dodgson's lap and alludes to other incidents.

Then, there is the letter to Carroll's uncle, where he is upset at the news that his brother wants to marry 14 year old Alice Jane Donkin.
Carroll alludes to the similar problems he himself had gone through with "AL"..now..who could THAT be??

And why DID Alice's mother burn all of Carroll's letter to her daughter?

Because of his love for the governess?

I think not.

While it is certain that Dodgson was not the shy recluse, and had many adult friends including women, and did remain loyal to his girl friends even after they grew up.... a man who spent his time, money, and most of his life devoted to his child-friends is clearly not using it as a smoke screen to meet adult women.

If anyone still has doubts about Carroll's love and devotion to Alice, one just has to re-read the framing poems of the two Alice books again.

In Through the Looking Glass, published a few years after his falling out with the Liddell family, he wrote:
"Still she haunts me phantom wise, Alice moving under skys..never seen by waking eyes...

Yeah, he was in love with the governess all right!!!!

This book fundamentally changes the way we will all think about Carroll in the future. It's flawed - the biggest failure being its attempt to suggest an alternate explanation for events when leaving the questions unanswered would have been better. But even so it is powerful, cogent and flawlessly argued. It examines Carroll's entire biographical history and shows how, the biographers themselves have built on each other's mistakes and fantasies to create an almost entirely bogus image. The story is hugely entertaining and a terrible indictment of biogaphers everywhere!

Read it. If you love Carroll, Alice, history or biography, read it and prepare to be amused, amazed and informed

This book, unlike it's predecessors, brought forth hidden facts, uprooted misconceptions, defied the myth and drew an intricate and real image of the man behind the stories. Conspiracy and cover-up spanning over a century is now being discovered. Analyzing human behavior and social realities in addition to the past ignored material has lead Karoline Leach to "A New Understanding of Lewis Carroll".
This book challenges every former biographer who chose to follow legend and whim rather than to search for the truth of this infinitely wronged man. Questions of genius, morals, emotional stability, and sexuality are raised, as in all the others. This time, unlike the others, these questions are finally conquered. We have reached a revelation about an icon. The man behind the stories created from his mind and the stories created for his mind has once again emerged from the darkness. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lewis Carroll.

This important and detailed study of the new data about Charles Dodson and his alter ego Lewis Carroll shows that much that has been assumed about the man and his private life is as much a fantasy as the Alice's books. Relevant and adequate evidence from the letters, diary, and contemporary writings, now shows that Lewis Carroll was pretty much a normal, healthy adult person with a normal health social and private life. True, Dodson did have an affection for little girls, especially a little girl named Alice Pleasance Liddell (rhymes with little), but he also liked boys and men and photographed many of them. And in his later years he loved women, many, many adult women, perhaps, as Leach pointed out, too many. Although Karoline Leach, well-loved and well known British actress, appears to contradict the view of Carroll expressed by Cohen in Cohen's book which has now become the (gold) standard biography of Carroll, both are probably correct. At Oxford and in his early years, Carroll concerned himself more with children and later in London and at the beach he concerned himself with adult women. At both times in his life, Mrs. Grundy objected. Yet, Carroll was clear in his own conscience and nowhere is there the slightest piece of evidence that he did anything wrong by modern cultural standards. Oh yes, one of the main things I enjoyed about Leach's book, is the clear presentation of what it was like at Oxford during the time that Carroll was a student there. The boys with noble titles wore gold tassels and dined at the high table. Commoners worn black tassels and dined in the commons. No one could matriculate at Oxford unless they signed off on the 39 principles of the Church of England and therefore only those who were adherent to the state religion had a go at an Oxford degree. Also interesting is the amount of wealth controlled by the clergy and the penchant they had for distributing two-thirds of the income from the vast estates held by the church to (who else?) themselves. The nepotism within the church is too appalling to discuss. For good reasons, America's founders decided on strict separation of church and state.