In March of 1879, Lewis Carroll sent his new type of puzzle which he called Doublets to Vanity Fair. The puzzles were used as a competition:
first there was a trial run of three weeks of Doublets and then full scale competition began after that.
The rules of the puzzle were quite simple enough. Two words of the same length are proposed. The puzzle consists of linking these together by interposing
other words, each of which shall differ from the next word in one letter only. That is to say, one letter may be changed in one of the given words,
then one letter in the word so obtained, and so on, until we arrive at the other given word. For example, HEAD may be changed to TAIL by interposing the words
heal, teal, tell, tall. Here are the words in the competition:
Here are the solutions:
