Further nonsense verse and prose

About this book

Further nonsense verse and prose by Lewis Carroll is a collection of humorous verse and prose written in the early 20th century. Edited and framed by Langford Reed, it gathers largely uncollected or newly printed nonsense poems, playful letters, acrostics, and comic sketches drawn from magazines, manuscripts, and early journals. The volume highlights Carroll’s wordplay, parodies, and whimsical logic—often inspired by children—while the foreword sets his life and methods in context.

The opening of the collection begins with the editor’s expansive foreword, offering a lively biography of Charles Dodgson, explaining the sources of the pieces, defending nonsense as a deliberate, technical art, and recounting his photography, friendships, the genesis of Alice, his mathematical work, and meticulous standards. After this scene-setting, the selections launch into light verse and parodies from his early period—comic laments and a mock “coronach,” seaside satire, a limerick, a tipsy ode, and a playful “lesson in Latin”—alongside ballad pastiche and a tongue‑in‑cheek essay on “poetry for the million.” Signature Carrollian play follows: the shaped “Mouse’s Tail,” a rhymed letter with sketches, affectionate acrostics, and a long, mock‑heroic narrative about a self-styled poet (“Wilhelm von Schmitz”). The excerpt concludes with a whimsical letter‑tale about three cats and the start of a mock‑medieval chronicle, signaling the variety and tone of the pieces to come.