Editing Mad Hatter (section)

==Riddle{{anchor|The_Hatter.27s_riddle}}==
In the chapter "A Mad Tea Party", the Hatter asks a much-noted riddle: "Why is a [[raven]] like a [[writing desk]]?" When Alice gives up trying to figure out why, the Hatter admits "I haven't the slightest idea!". Carroll originally intended the riddle to be without an answer, but after many requests from readers, he and others—including puzzle expert [[Sam Loyd]]—suggested possible answers; in his preface to the 1896 edition of ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'', Carroll wrote:

{{quote|Inquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, "because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" This, however, is merely an afterthought; the riddle as originally invented had no answer at all.<ref>[http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice9.html "The Mad Hatter's riddle: why is a raven like a writing desk?"]. Alice in Wonderland Net. Retrieved 14 June 2015.</ref>{{efn|Here, Caroll deliberately spelled the word "never" as "nevar", which is "raven" backward.}}}}

Loyd proposed a number of alternative solutions to the riddle, including "because [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]] wrote on both" (alluding to Poe's 1845 narrative poem ''[[The Raven]]'') and "because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes". The April 2017 edition of Bandersnatch, the Newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society [Issue 172, {{ISSN|0306-8404}}, Apr 2017], published the following solution, proposed by puzzle expert Rick Hosburn: "Why is a Raven like a Writing-desk?" "Because one is a crow with a bill, while the other is a bureau with a quill!" The [[Royal Society for the Protection of Birds|RSPB]], in its definition of Raven, states: "The raven [...] is all black with a large bill, and long wings." American author [[Stephen King]] provides an alternative answer to the Hatter's riddle in his 1977 horror novel ''[[The Shining (novel)|The Shining]]''. Snowbound and isolated in the [[Rocky Mountains]], [[Danny Torrance]] hears whispers of the malign "voice of the [Overlook] hotel" inside his head, including this bit of mockery: "Why is a raven like a writing desk? The higher the fewer, of course! Have another cup of tea!"

Other proposed answers include; "because one has flapping fits and the other fitting flaps"; "because one is good for writing books and the other better for biting rooks"; and "because a writing desk is a rest for pens and a raven is a pest for wrens".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Any possible solutions to the Mad Hatter's conundrum: Why is a raven like a writing-desk? {{!}} Notes and Queries {{!}} guardian.co.uk |url=https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2083,00.html |access-date=2025-01-21 |website=www.theguardian.com}}</ref>