Learning about Punctuation the Lewis Carroll Way

I never used to bother with the finer points of punctuation because I wasn’t sure how to use such devices as colons and semi-colons. For a long time, I didn’t even know their proper names. To me, they were two dots, or a dot and a comma. And I’m supposed to be an educated woman.

But one day, help arrived in an unexpected way.  I started reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland out loud to my children, and I became very excited. It wasn’t so much the story (which is great in its own right). My attention was grabbed by how the book was punctuated. I really think Lewis Carroll is a master of punctuation: he knew just where to use all the devices to the best effect. (Do you like how I slipped a colon into that last sentence?)

 I enjoyed Through the Looking Glass even more than its predecessor. While I was reading, I had my eye on all the colons, semi-colons, brackets, ellipses, inverted commas or quotation marks… I took note of where they’d been used, and I started modelling my own writing on this fine example. (By the way, I’m still learning, so don’t examine my sentences too closely!)

So if you or your children want to improve your punctuation, download a copy of any of Lewis Carroll’s books. They are all available free online. While you’re noting all the colons and commas, you just might enjoy the stories as well.

Something else…

Do you like the images from the Alice books? I found them on a website called From Old Books.org:

FOBO: From Old Books dot Org

Pictures, Engravings & Extracts From Old Books

Over 3,200 free images in high resolution from old rare antique books. 

What you might find and how to find it:

There are 3263 images listed here; most of them in more than one size. The images are mostly scanned from old books, ranging in date from the 1500s up to the 1920s and early 1930s. Most of them are out of copyright, or public domain.