Symbolic logic. Part I: elementary

London & New York: Macmillan and Co., 1896. SECOND EDITION. Original publisher’s cloth with the author and title in black on the front cover. Second edition of Carroll’s early work of logic with the introduction dated January 1896. The first three editions were all published in 1896; the fourth (and final) edition was printed the following year. Intended to supply “for a most interesting mental recreation,” this work anticipates his later Game of logic (1897), and introduces his inventive use of square Venn diagrams to represent original syllogisms. The first section “is a serious attempt to popularize formal logic and accuracy of thought . . . there are plenty of quaint examples, answers and solutions” (Williams, Madan, Green). The appendix is addressed to teachers, and offers a preview of the second and third parts, which were never completed.

A few changes were made in this second edition, “including the correction of one ‘splendid’ and one ‘terrible’ mistake; the new Preface is dated 11 May 1896, and its two pages occupy the place of the dedications and next (blank) page.” There was also a sentence added to the ‘advertisement.”

Dodgson (1832-98), who was appointed lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College from 1855 to 1881, strictly published what he considered recreational works in logic and literature under his pseudonym.

DNB, XXII, p. 567-69; Watson, New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, III, pp. 977-79; Williams, Madan, Green, 270.