Symbolic logic. Part I: elementary

London & New York: Macmillan and Co., 1896. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Original publisher’s cloth with the author and title in black on the front cover, edge of back cover just starting to fray; overall a wonderful copy with the bookplate of J. Steele, Coldstream Guards on the pastedown. First edition, first issue of Carroll’s early work of logic with the introduction dated January 1896. 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. 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.