The Hunting of the Snark - Softcover

R. Eugene Jackson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0886802733 ISBN 13: 9780886802738

Publisher: I E Clark, 1987

Synopsis

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;They pursued it with forks and hope;They threatened its life with a railway-share;They charmed it with smiles and soap.Lewis Carroll's magnificent nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark features an unlikely cast of characters drawn from the Jabberwocky in Through the Looking Glass. This irresistible version is illustrated, and has an introduction by, Chris Riddell.This is a luxury edition with both black and white and colour artwork, ribbon marker and metallic blue sprayed edges.It was first published by Macmillan in 1876.

About this title

About the Author

Oxford University mathematics professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 – 1898), under his pen name Lewis Carroll, created some of the most brilliant, original and uniquely inventive literature in the English language. He is most famous for three magical works: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, and the witty, whimsical and ever-elusive The Hunting of the Snark.
 
When pressed to explain the meaning of The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll invariably replied that he did not know. “I’m very much afraid I didn’t mean anything but nonsense!” he wrote in a letter to friends, “Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I’m very glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best I’ve seen is...that the whole book is an allegory on the search for happiness. I think that fits beautifully in many ways.”
 
About the Artist
Mahendra Singh is an illustrator and longstanding Lewis Carroll aficionado. He is a member of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and an editor for their journal, the Knight Letter. For Singh, creating the illustrations for The Hunting of the Snark "has been a labor of love—fitting Lewis Carroll into a proto-Surrealist straitjacket with matching Dada cufflinks."

Review

(in full The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits) Nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll, first published in 1876. The fanciful eight-canto poem describes the sea voyage of a bellman, boots (bootblack), bonnet maker, barrister, broker, billiard marker, banker, beaver, baker, and butcher, and their search for the elusive, undefined snark. While scholars have attributed to the work hidden meanings from political subversion to existential agony, Carroll maintained that it was intended simply as nonsense. Painter Henry Holiday illustrated the first edition; however, the poet refused to include any picture of the snark, preferring that readers rely on their own imaginations. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Edition details

• Publisher: I E Clark
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0886802733
• ISBN 13: 9780886802738
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 23