So many readers were to take the advice of the King of Hearts that by the end of the nineteenth century Alice had acquired a pre-eminent and unassailable position in children’s literature. Lewis Carroll’s use of logic, by which the ordinary is translated into the extraordinary in an entirely plausible way, is delightfully combined with an exceptional knowledge and understanding of the mind of the child. Satire, allusion, and symbolism weave deeper and mysterious meanings, lending a measure of immortality to Carroll’s remarkable fantasy.
