Alice’s Adventures in Jurisprudencia by Peter F. Sloss.
Illustrated by Sally Richardson in nice imitation of Tenniel’s style.
Published by Borogrove Press 1982, softback, signed by author.
ISBN: 096082460X
In the book, a modern-day, grown up Alice, is unwinding after a long day at her lawyer’s office when she falls asleep in front of the television, and finds herself in Jurisprudencia, a wonderland type world filled with some old friends, plus not a few pedantic lawyers. Sloss is an attorney, so I suspect he knows whereof he speaks…
He apparently got the idea after hearing a judge say:
“If words had absolute and constant referents, it might be possible to discover contractual intention in the words themselves and in the manner in which they were arranged. Words, however, do not have absolute and constant referents.”
This reminded him of Humpty’s pronouncement that…
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’
There’s an appendix containing cited cases at the back, too…
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