If Carroll had been around today with all the technology gamers have at their fingertips, his imagination and inventive personality would have definitely been in overdrive and who knows what he would have come up with?

Wonderland Postage Case

Victorians, both adults and children, wrote lots of letters. Today, as we rush around sending e-mails and communicating in 'txt spk', the idea of sitting down with a pen and a sheet of paper, then putting our letter in an envelope and posting it, seems a bit of an old-fashioned chore.

However, hand-written letters sent through the post was all the rage in Victorian times. The first adhesive postage stamp for use with a public postal system had appeared on the market in 1840. Carroll invented the Wonderland Postage Case, which was the must-have gadget of the 1890s. It doesn't seem much when we think about it today, but Victorians thought Carroll's gadget was the height of modern thinking. It consisted of a simple envelope of stiff card with slots for the different priced stamps available from the post office. The case was decorated with images from Alice in Wonderland.

The Nyctograph

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with an idea you hope you will remember in the morning? Carroll invented a writing tablet for use during the night that made note-taking in the dark a piece of cake. Victorians couldn't just flick on a bedside lamp when they wanted to see during the night and writing without light was difficult. Yet Carroll's nyctograph was a device for writing in the dark. It was a simple piece of cardboard with 16 square holes and symbols forming a special alphabet that Carroll designed for use with his invention. Each letter of this shorthand alphabet was represented by a series of dots and/or strokes and lines.

A nyctograph user would write one of the symbols in each box and then move the card on. Good invention, Lewis, but I think I'll stick to using my smartphone for note-taking in the dark. It's much more convenient!

Word Ladder

Carroll also invented the game Word Ladder on Christmas Day, 1877. He published the rules and how to play the game in the magazine, Vanity Fair. It is a game for two players. One player gives the other a start word of four letters and an end word of four letters. For example 'WARM' and 'COLD'. The aim of the game is to change one letter per step and get to the end word in as few steps as possible: WARM - WARD -CARD - CORD - COLD

Carroll thought that four was the best number of letters for Word Ladder. Three-letter and five-letter words can be used, but most of the time these are either too hard to do, or too easy. In Carroll's original rules for the game, proper names such as 'JOHN' and 'JUNE' were not allowed, but when you try a Word Ladder yourself I think we can forget this rule.

Your turn

Here are a few word ladders for you to do. When you've sorted these out, find a partner and make up your own. Good luck!

1 TIME - MAPS (4 moves)

2 LOCK - DOOR (4)

3 SOIL - WIND (5)

4 CAT -DOG (3)

5 BOOK - COAL (3)

6 WORK - JOKE (3)

7 SINK - FOOD (5)

8. END - BIN (4)

Answers:

1 TIME, TAME, TAPE, TAPS MAPS; 2 LOCK, LOOK, LOOM, DOOM, DOOR; 3 SOIL, SAIL, SAID, SAND, WAND, WIND; 4 CAT, COT, DOT, DOG; 5 BOOK, COOK, COOL, COAL; 6 WORK, WORE, WOKE, JOKE; 7 SINK, SUNK, FUNK, FUND, FOND, FOOD; 8 BIN, BID, AID, AND, END.