The Hatter's Riddles
Every riddle the Hatter ever asked — quoted verbatim, cited, and answered (or not) exactly as Carroll left them.
“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
The most famous unanswered question in literature. In Chapter VII, “A Mad Tea-Party,” the Hatter’s second-ever speech to Alice is:
“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
Alice is delighted — “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles. — I believe I can guess that” — but the riddle is never answered in the book. When Alice gives up and asks for the answer:
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
“Nor I,” said the March Hare.
Reference: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII, “A Mad Tea-Party.”
Carroll’s own answer (1896)
Carroll was asked about the riddle so often that he finally answered it in the preface to the 86th thousand edition (1896) — thirty-one years after the book appeared. His answer, verbatim:
“Enquiries 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, viz: ‘Because it can produce a few notes, tho 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.”
Reference: Preface to the 86th thousand of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1896).
The “nevar” detail
Carroll spelled the key word “nevar” — “raven” backwards, i.e., with “the wrong end in front.” Proofreaders, thinking they had caught a printer’s error, “corrected” it to “never” in later printings, destroying the joke. Carroll admirer Denis Crutch pointed this out in 1976, and the story is retold in Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice. This site quotes the preface with the restored “nevar” spelling, flagged as an editorial restoration.
Other people’s answers
Readers have proposed answers for 160 years. The best-known, all reported-not-invented-here:
- Sam Loyd (1914): “Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes” — and “Because Poe wrote on both.”
- Aldous Huxley (1928): “Because there is a ‘b’ in both and an ‘n’ in neither.”
- Cyril Pearson: “Because it slopes with a flap.”
None of these is Carroll’s. Carroll’s own position was unambiguous: the riddle originally had no answer at all.
The Hatter’s other “riddles”
The tea-party runs on riddling logic rather than formal riddles:
- “Have you guessed the riddle yet?” — the Hatter’s refrain, asked before any answer could exist.
- “What day of the month is it?” — the watch question, which turns out to be the only question at the table with an answer (“The fourth” — “Two days wrong!”).
- The see/eat logic chain — “‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’” is less a riddle than a logic trap, and Alice walks straight into it.
Source notes
The riddle and its non-answer are from Chapter VII (1865). Carroll’s 1896 preface answer is quoted from the preface to the 86th thousand; the “nevar” restoration follows Denis Crutch’s 1976 observation as reported in The Annotated Alice. The alternative answers are catalogued in Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice and More Annotated Alice.