Carroll, one of 11 children, knows his audience well. His stories--clever, provocative, and bizarre--capture the imaginations of children worldwide. Though a prolific storyteller from childhood, he went on to become a mathematician, a fact evidenced by the Tangled Tales serial, which contains a mathematical equation in each installment.

Other stories included in this collection are "The Hunting of the Snark," which was composed backward, in a sense, when inspiration for the tale came by way of the last line; "Rhyme? And Reason?"; the Sylvie and Bruno books; and the original Alice story, "Alice's Adventures Underground," penned and illustrated in Carroll's own hand. Two never-before-printed poems, originally inscribed in two storybooks and presented as mementos to a little girl and boy, conclude this enchanting collection.