Lewis Carroll Resources: The Game of Logic


Game of Logic First Edition	Game of Logic Diagrams	Symbolic Logic First Edition

Lewis Carroll's The Game of Logic - First Editions and Reprints

Carroll, Lewis
The Game of Logic
Macmillan, 1886

This first edition of 500 copies The Game of Logic was printed by E. Baxter of Oxford, but was considered by Dodgson to be poorly printed and was not 'published' in the UK. It is believed that 50 copies were bound and copies fitting this description are known. In a letter to Macmillan, Dodgson suggests that the remaining copies should be sent to America, although it is uncertain whether they were actually sent.

An envelope containing a card showing the two diagrams that are used to solve the problems together with the nine counters that are needed was published around the same time to accompany the book. Later versions of this card and envelope were also printed.

Carroll, Lewis
The Game of Logic
Macmillan, 1887

This is the first published edition of The Game of Logic, printed by Clay and Sons in 500 copies. It is effectively a reprint of the Baxter edition (above) although with some minor changes to the text and diagrams. The envelope, card and counters (above) were not reprinted at this time, but were issued with the book. There were four editions of the book published, each of 500 copies.

Carroll, Lewis
Symbolic Logic and The Game of Logic
New York: Dover Publications, 1958
London: Constable, 1959

Effectively this is the first full reprint of The Game of Logic, with a new introduction by Edmund C Berkeley.

Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic - First Editions and Reprints

Carroll, Lewis
Symbolic Logic - Part I
Macmillan, 1896

This is the first part of the three volume textbook Dodgson was working on from the early 1880's. It is aimed at an older reader than The Game of Logic, although it does include the diagrammatic method of solving problem. There were four editions of Part I, with minor changes and corrections between them. Dodgson died before Parts II and III could be published although some of the content had been set up in type.

William Warren Bartley III (editor)
Lewis Carroll’s Symbolic Logic
Edited, with annotations and an introduction, by William Warren Bartley
Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1977. Second edition, 1986.

Only the first volume of Dodgson’s planned three-volume text on symbolic logic was published during his lifetime although notes and galley proofs of material for the second and third volumes have survived. Bartley located and interpreted this material to produce a partial reconstruction of the two unpublished volumes. The book includes a fifth edition of the first volume with introduction and extensive notes on all the surviving material.

Charles Dodgson
The Logic Pamphlets of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Related Pieces
Compiled, with introductory essays, notes, and annotations, by Francine F. Abeles
Charlottesville: The Lewis Carroll Society of North America (distributed by the University Press of Virginia), 2010.

Over 50 items relating to Dodgson’s work on logic. These include test papers, treatises, advertisements and notices.

Analyses of Lewis Carroll's 'Game of Logic' and his Logic Diagrams, including bibliographical matters

Francine F. Abeles
‘Lewis Carroll’s Formal Logic’
In History and Philosophy of Logic, Issue 26, February 2005, pp.33–46

A discussion of Carroll's mechanical approach to logical deduction, arguing that Dodgson saw the elimination problem in class logic differently from his contemporaries, and in doing so, anticipated several important concepts and techniques in automated deductive reasoning.

Francine F. Abeles
The Logic Pamphlets of Charles Lutwdige Dodgson and Related Pieces
New York: The Lewis Carroll Society of North America (in association with the University Press of Virginia), 2010

The collected logic papers, pamphlets and manuscripts of Charles Dodgson, together with notes and introductory essays. The material includes various logic diagrams including variant version for The Game of Logic and chart showing analyses of propositions,

Francine F. Abeles
‘Lewis Carroll’s Visual Logic’
In History and Philosophy of Logic, Issue 28, February 2017, pp.1–17

An examination of Carroll’s visual logic systems - primarily his diagrams for solving syllogisms and method of trees for solviong sorites. His methods are put in an historical context and compared with those of his comtemporaies, such as Venn's.

Francine F. Abeles
‘Lewis Carroll: Logic
Online at The Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Extensive online article about Carroll’s logic. Click Here

Ernest Coumet
‘The Game of Logic: A Game of Universes’
In Edward Guiliano (editor)
Lewis Carroll Observed
New York: Clarkson N. Potter (in association with The Lewis Carroll Society of North America), 1976.

Coumet’s article in this collection of essays on diverse aspects of Dodgson’s life and works is a scholarly examination of concepts underpinning Dodgson’s work on logic. Although written before much of Dodgson’s work was widely available to scholars (via Abeles and Bartley), it remains an important piece.

Clare Imholtz
‘Two Simultaneous Editions of Lewis Carroll’s The Game of Logic’
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, Volume 21, 2008 - Issue 4

In 1887, two significantly different editions of the book were being simultaneously sold on the two sides of the Atlantic. This article discusses the circumstances of and reasons for this unusual phenomenon.

George Englebretsen
Carrollian Notes
College Publications (Texts in Philosophy), 2001

A collection of essays, previously published in a variety of journals, here collected together in a single volume with additional notes.

Amirouche Moktefi
‘Lewis Carroll’s Logic’
In Dov M. Gabbay & John Woods (editors)
Handbook of the History of Logic
Vol. 4: British Logic in the Nineteenth Century
Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2008, pp. 457-505

Extensive account of Carroll's work on logic includes detailed analysis of the 'Game of Logic' and Carroll's logic diagrams.

Amirouche Moktefi & Sun-Joo Shin
‘A History of Logic Diagrams’
In Dov M. Gabbay, Francis Jeffry Pelletier & John Woods (editors)
Handbook of the History of Logic
Vol. 11: Logic: A History of its Central Concepts
Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2012, pp. 611-82

Analysis of Carroll's logic diagrams and his methods of using them and comparisons with diagrams developed by other logicians, including John Venn.

Amirouche Moktefi
‘Beyond Syllogisms:Carroll’s (Marked) Quadriliteral Diagram’
In Amirouche Moktefi & Sun-Joo Shin
Visual Reasoning with Diagrams (Studies in Universal Logic)
Basel: Springer, 2012, pp. 55-71

Exploration of Carroll's diagrammatic method of solving problems with 3 or more premises and explication of a manuscript in which Carroll attempts to solve a sorites problem using his quadriliteral diagram, which serves as a case study in how that particular diagram was to be used.

Edward Wakeling
The Logic of Lewis Carroll
Privately printed in an edition of 300 copies, 1978

This 40 page pamphlet serves as a good introduction to Lewis Carroll's work of logic, placing it in an historical context.

Robin Wilson
Lewis Carroll in Numberland
Allen Lane (Penguin), 2008.

A thorough account of Dodgson’s work on and interest in mathematics, logic and related subjects. There is a good section explaining the 'Game of Logic' and some of Dodgson's other logical work.