Puzzles
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
In Chapter 7 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asks Alice this riddle at the tea party — and never gives an answer. Alice guesses, gives up, and the story simply moves on.
Reveal the answer
Lewis Carroll originally intended it to have no answer at all. Pestered by readers for decades, he finally supplied one in a later preface: 'Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' — a pun on 'never' and 'nevar' (raven spelled backwards, as a printer's error had rendered it). Puzzle fans have since invented dozens of other answers, from 'Poe wrote on both' to pure wordplay.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — Chapter 7, 'A Mad Tea-Party', 1865
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