The Hunting of the Snark

Lewis Carroll

Jan 2014 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits) is typically categorized as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Written from 1874 to 1876, the poem borrows the setting, some creatures, and eight portmanteau words from Carroll's earlier poem "Jabberwocky" in his children's novel Through the Looking Glass (1871). The plot follows a crew of ten trying to hunt the Snark, an animal which may turn out to be a highly dangerous Boojum; the only one of the crew to find the Snark quickly vanishes, leading the narrator to explain that it was a Boojum after all. Henry Holiday illustrated the poem, and the poem is dedicated to Gertrude Chataway, whom Carroll met as a young girl at the English seaside town Sandown in the Isle of Wight in 1875.

About the author

Charles Luthwidge Dodgson was born in Daresbury, England on January 27, 1832. He became a minister of the Church of England and a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. He was the author, under his own name, of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, Symbolic Logic, and other scholarly treatises. He is better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll. Using this name, he wrote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He was also a pioneering photographer, and he took many pictures of young children, especially girls, with whom he seemed to empathize. He died on January 14, 1898.