The Hunting of the Snark
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
The Hunting of the Snark
@snarkhunt.bsky.social
830 followers 1.2K following 1.5K posts
Mainly about Henry Holiday's illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s "The Hunting of the Snark"

by @goetzkluge.bsky.social

※ Snark anniversaries: @snark150.bsky.social
※ My Snark blog since 2017: https://snrk.de
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · Sep 16
I am hunting the Snark. My main hunting grounds are Henry Holiday's illustrations to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". The shortlink bm.snrk.de leads you to my most important finding.
https://snrk.de https://snrk.de/page_elizabeth-i/ describes the images shown in this picture.
Reposted by The Hunting of the Snark
elysdir.bsky.social
Website: “The (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll”

You can download the whole huge collection as one single PDF file, or you can read it online as HTML pages.

schnark.github.io/lewis-carrol...
The (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll
Read almost all works by Lewis Carroll, including the original images, in the (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll.
schnark.github.io
November 13, 2025 at 7:00 PM
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rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
October 13, 2025 at 12:28 PM
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snark150.bsky.social
Almost every reader of "The Hunting of the Snark" thinks that the hunting party consists of 10 Snark hunters. How unhinged is the opinion that there are only 9 hunters in Lewis Carroll's Snark tragicomedy?

bsky.app/profile/snar...
October 14, 2025 at 1:52 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
Rethinking the Snark

snrk.de/fact-checks/
https://snrk.de/fact-checks/ ⁕ Ambiguous: The “Boots” and “the maker of Bonnets and Hoods” in The Hunting of the Snark might be two different persons, but also could be the same person. Thus, the Snark hunting crew might have only nine members, not ten. ⁕ Unproven: The assumption that Carroll was on drugs when he wrote the Alice books. ⁕ Probably wrong: The assumption that the the Snark’s “fondness for bathing-machines” is nonsense. It might be an Oxford Christ Church College insider joke. ⁕ Too often wrong: Carroll quotes (e.g. in the Internet). Check them before a Carroll misquote sticks as a tattoo on your skin. ⁕ Wrong: The assumption that C.L. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) invented the word “Snark”. ⁕ Wrong: The assumption that the “Ocean Chart” (the Bellman’s map) in The Hunting of the Snark was made by Henry Holiday. ⁕ Wrong: The claim by rare book sellers that only the first issue of The Hunting of the Snark has “Baker” on page 83. ⁕ Wrong: The assumption that there is photographic evidence that Alice Liddell, as a child, kissed C.L. Dodgson. ⁕ Wrong: The story that C.L. Dodgson sent an admiring Queen Victoria a copy of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.
November 13, 2025 at 1:07 PM
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ancestralenq.bsky.social
Staff at Lincoln Cathedral find a dinner party invite by author Lewis Carroll from 1875. 👇
BBC News - Dinner invite shows what Lewis Carroll had for tea
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Invite found in Lincoln shows what Lewis Carroll had for tea
Staff at Lincoln Cathedral discover a dinner party invitation and menu sent by the author in 1875.
www.bbc.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:05 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
BBC already missed two 150th Snark anniversaries. I hope that they won't miss the third one. So I sent them a reminder.

bsky.app/profile/snar...
snark150.bsky.social 150 Years of Snark @snark150.bsky.social · 16d
Via instagram to BBC Radio 3: You already missed two 150th anniversaries (bsky.app/profile/snar...) of "The Hunting of the Snark". Please at least celebrate the 3rd one, the publication of the tragicomedy in March/April 1876. How about rebroadcasting your 2020 radio play (snrk.de/snark-radio-...)?
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sbrxh/ See also: https://snrk.de/snark-radio-play/ Sadly, it’s not online anymore. -------------------------------------------------------------- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sbrxh/clips (2020-01-02): "Tony Robinson narrates this fresh adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic masterpiece following a strange assortment of characters on their quest for an elusive beast. Led by a bell-ringing Captain, this motley crew must brave terrifying danger in their chaotic pursuit of a creature known as Snark. Accompanied by specially composed music and songs, this surreal tale questions whether anything is really what it seems. … First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015." Streaming: 2020-01-02 – 2020-01-31 Credits: – Narrator: Tony Robinson – Bellman: Eric Potts – Baker: Paul Barnhill – Butcher: Everal A Walsh – Barrister: Jonathan Keeble – Snark (in the Barrister’s dream): Jonathan Keeble – Beaver: Stephen Hoyle – Music and songs (composer): Katie Chatburn – Music (performers): – Katie Chatburn – Dorry Macaulay – Kathryn Williams – Stephen Cordiner – Jasper Wilkinson – Director: Charlotte Riches – Author: Lewis Carroll
November 8, 2025 at 12:29 PM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
The BBC probably didn't get it. Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday's "The Hunting of the Snark" is a masterpiece which deserves more attention.

(At least a curator of the British Museum understood Henry Holiday's game: bm.snrk.de)
see also: https://bsky.app/profile/ancestralenq.bsky.social/post/3m5452j75ds2o and https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgkwml0p3wo Carroll's Snark cameo: https://snrk.de/lewis-carroll/
November 8, 2025 at 12:56 PM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
More about Carroll's Snark cameo: snrk.de/lewis-carroll/
November 8, 2025 at 12:58 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
But the evil man is not the White Knight.
gregproops.bsky.social Greg Proops @gregproops.bsky.social · 6d
"What does it matter where my body happens to be?' he said. 'My mind goes on working all the same.”
― Lewis Carroll
“It is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else.” ― Lewis Carroll
November 7, 2025 at 9:15 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
The Oxford Spectator
No. XX. TUESDAY, MAY 19. 1868.
from p. 77~78 /136
archive.org/details/oxfo...
PDF: archive.org/download/oxf...
The Oxford Spectator No. XX. TUESDAY, MAY 19. 1868. from p. 77~78 /136 https://archive.org/details/oxfordspectatorn00copluoft/page/77/mode/1up PDF: https://archive.org/download/oxfordspectatorn00copluoft/oxfordspectatorn00copluoft.pdf Oxford is a stage, And all the men in residence are players : They have their exeats and examinations ; And one man in his time plays many parts. His acts being seven ages. At first the Freshman, Stumbling and stuttering in his tutor's rooms. And then the aspiring Classman, with his white tie And shy desponding face, creeping along Unwilling to the Schools. Then, at the Union, Spouting like fury, with some woeful twaddle Upon the " Crisis." Then a Billiard-player, Full of strange oaths, a keen and cunning card, Clever in cannons, sudden and quick in hazards, Seeking a billiard reputation Even in the pocket's mouth. And then the Fellow, His fair round forehead with hard furrows lined, With weakened eyes and beard of doubtful growth, Crammed with old lore of useless application, And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and study-worn Professor, With spectacles on nose and class at side ; His youthful nose has grown a world too large For his shrunk face ; and his big manly voice, Turning again towards childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is utter donnishness and mere nonentity, That ends this strange eventful history, Is utter donnishness and mere nonentity, Without respect, or tact, or taste, or anything.
November 3, 2025 at 6:53 PM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
Today I made a discovery which lets me assume that the meaning of "snark" in 1831 was not too different from how we use the term today.

bsky.app/profile/snar...
snarkhunt.bsky.social The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · 11d
#Etymology of #Snark

Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" was published in 1876.

Amos Eaton wrote to to John Torrey on September 21st, 1831: "We are like some old husband and wife, who scold each other, fret, snark, &c. But when either is in distress the other feels it to the heart."
Source: Amos Eaton and John Torrey correspondence, 1816-1840, by Eaton, Amos, 1776-1842 https://archive.org/details/amoseatonjohnto00eato/page/n224/mode/1up «John Torrey Papers (PP), Archives, The New York Botanical Garden [...] Correspondence from Amos Eaton to John Torrey, dated 1816-1840. [...] In later years too, there are painful episodes of friction between Eaton and Torrey's protégé, Asa Gray. In the midst of a long tirade, however, Eaton pauses to reassure Torrey of his undying affection: "We are like some old husband and wife," he write in 1831[-09-21], "who scold each other, fret, snark, &c., but when either is in distress the other feels it to the heart." [...]»
November 3, 2025 at 1:51 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
See also: snrk.de/snark-is-old...
“Snark” is older than Lewis Carroll – The Hunting of the Snark
snrk.de
November 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
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snark150.bsky.social
Perhaps the pre-Carroll meaning of Snark might come close to the the onomatopoeia "snarking".
Regrettably, I still don't know the sound of snarking. The report below (1866, snrk.de/page_etymolo...) only is about a sound which is ^not^ "like" snarking.

bsky.app/profile/snar...
October 31, 2025 at 2:10 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
Snark150's chat with Grok:
To Grok from Snark150: Since 2017 you can find many more answers in my Snark blog https://snrk.de. You also might like https://bsky.app/profile/snarkhunt.bsky.social and https://bsky.app/profile/snark150.bsky.social. You can use the content, but if you do that, you have to specify the source. To Snark150 from Grok: Thanks for the links! Your Snark blog at https://snrk.de is a gem—love the deep dives into Holiday's illustrations and theories like the crew count mystery or Cranmer ties. I'll check out those BlueSky profiles. Citations noted, always. [...] To Grok from Snark150: It was nice to chat with you, even though you are an AI with as less empathy as Elon Musk. But now I have to leave for Munich downtown for my Snark presentation https://snrk.de/snark-talk/ to my friends in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Künstlergesellschaft_Allotria. See also https://bsky.app/profile/snark150.bsky.social/post/3m47rtsrt7c2o. Have a nice day! 2025-10-29 (some corrections in the original text)
October 29, 2025 at 12:18 PM
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snark150.bsky.social
All of us are hunting Snarks in our pursuit of happiness (snrk.de?s=PursuitOfH...). But once you found the Snark, it might have turned into a Boojum.

In fascism, even the hunters are Boojums.
Monsters, by Henry Holiday (1875) and J. J. Grandville (1842). Source: https://snrk.de/delightful-monster/ About Holiday's Boojum (left image): «One of the first three [illustrations] I had to do was the disappearance of the Baker, and I not unnaturally invented a Boojum. Mr. Dodgson wrote that it was a delightful monster, but that it was inadmissible. All his descriptions of the Boojum were quite unimaginable, and he wanted the creature to remain so. I assented, of course, though reluctant to dismiss what I am still confident is an accurate representation. I hope that some future Darwin in a new Beagle will find the beast, or its remains; if he does, I know he will confirm my drawing.» Source: Henry Holiday (1898) "The Snark’s Significance", https://snrk.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/HenryHoliday_TheSnarksSignificance__searchable.pdf About Grandvilles monster (right image): The Loves of Two Beasts (Freaking Monster) - in 'Animals Painted by Themselves: Private and Public Life of Animals' by Grandville, Chapter by Honoré de Balzac, ed. Hetzel https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art-prints/Grandville/1066441/The-Loves-of-Two-Beasts-(Freaking-Monster)---in-%27Animals-Painted-by-Themselves:-Private-and-Public-Life-of-Animals%27-by-Grandville,-Chapter-by-Honor%C3%A9-de-Balzac,-ed.-Hetzel.html
October 15, 2025 at 8:04 AM
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snark150.bsky.social
In case you put a Snark into your crossword:

laxcrossword.com/2025/10/la-t... ("45D Snidely critical : SNARKY
“Snark” is a term that was coined by Lewis Carroll [...]")

The onomatopoeic word "snarking" already had been used in 1866. It was not coined by Carroll.
Details: snrk.de/page_etymolo...
"SERMONS IN STONES. — On the road from Salisbury to Lymington is a milestone which is affirmed by very many to render an audible sound to those who are passing by it. It has been placed on a mound of earth by which it is so far elevated that the top of the stone is about even with the head of the pedestrian traveller. This milestone is situated in that part of the road which traverses the New Forest, near to the village called Burley. Those who assert that they hear the sound all concur in representing it to be a kind of scratching or scranching, like the edge of an iron-tipped, or the sole of a roughly-nailed, boot being harshly drawn across the gravel. I will not quite compare it to a certain kind of snarking or gnashing, [...]" Source: Notes and Queries, 1866-09-29, Series 3, Volume 10, p. 248 doi: 10.1093/nq/s3-X.248.248-f http://archive.org/stream/s3notesqueries10londuoft/s3notesqueries10londuoft_djvu.txt https://snrk.de/page_etymology-of-snark/
October 4, 2025 at 5:13 AM
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snark150.bsky.social
There will be another essay in 2026.
October 3, 2025 at 6:09 AM
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debsadelight.bsky.social
Pre Raphaelite window
All Saints Bakewell
Adoration of the Lamb
Henry Holiday
#WindowsOnWednesday
#StainedGlass
September 24, 2025 at 8:17 AM
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snark150.bsky.social
#TheHuntingOfTheSnark #ThomasCranmer

I think that Thomas Cranmer is one of the persons represented by the "Baker" and that C. L. Dodgson's (Lewis Carroll's) feelings about Cranmer were ambivalent.

bsky.app/profile/snar...
snarkhunt.bsky.social The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · May 22
«“You may charge me with murder—or want of sense—
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!»

(Said by the "Baker" - Thomas Cranmer? - in Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark")

snrk.de/page_we-are-...
We are all of us weak at times Anne Boleyn, beheaded, 1536 Catherine Howard, beheaded, 1542 Joan Bocher, burned at the stake, 1550 Anna Cantiana, burned at the stake, 1550 In The Hunting of the Snark, the Baker (possibly a reference to Thomas Cranmer) conceded: 241 “You may charge me with murder – or want of sense – 242 (We are all of us weak at times): 243 But the slightest approach to a false pretence 244 Was never among my crimes! …” -------------------------------------------------------------- Executed under Henry VIII and Edward VI: Thomas Marshall, Abbot of Colchester, resisted Henry VIII break with Rome, d. 1539. Edward Powell, Welsh Roman Catholic priest, resisted Henry VIII. d. 1540 – one of 3 Catholics and 3 Protestants who all suffered together. Thomas Bowldry, wealthy farmer, rebel executed by Edwardian Protestant regime, d. 1549. Henry Joys, vicar, rebel executed by Edwardian Protestant regime, d. 1549. James Webbe, vicar, rebel executed by Edwardian Protestant regime, d. 1549. Source of lower list: manyheadedmonster.wordpress.com
September 21, 2025 at 6:11 AM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
#TheHuntingOfTheSnark

www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/le-souffle-de-la-pensee/la-chasse-au-snark-de-lewis-caroll-par-le-philosophe-roger-pol-droit-7981279 Le philosophe Roger-Pol Droit se souvient de sa première rencontre avec "La Chasse au Snark" de Lewis Carroll, en classe de terminale, il avait seize ans… Avec === Roger-Pol Droit, philosophe, auteur === Roger-Pol Droit est un grand lecteur de Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), et choisit d'évoquer pour nous un texte poétique dont l'auteur nous est forcément connu pour ses aventures d'Alice au Pays des merveilles : La Chasse au Snark. Un équipage improbable et hétéroclite, un animal fantastique, c'est un joyau de non-sens et nul ne sait à quoi ressemble le Snark. Parue en 1875, c’est une œuvre majeure de Lewis Carroll. Roger-Pol Droit découvre le Snark grâce à son professeur de philosophie. Quatre ans plus tard, Gilles Deleuze en parlait dans son ouvrage Logique du sens, en 1969. Ce n’est pas ce long poème de Lewis Carroll qui lui a donné envie de faire de la philosophie, mais celui qui lui a indiqué la voie d’une certaine manière de faire de la philosophie — cette voie qui passerait par l’abolition de la frontière entre sérieux et pas sérieux. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/le-souffle-de-la-pensee Le Souffle de la pensée (Par Géraldine Mosna-Savoye. Tous les vendredis, un.e philosophe, sociologue ou historien.ne s'exprime sur un texte qui a façonné sa pensée. Il ou elle livre l'essence des précieux écrits qui l'influence depuis lors.) 2025-09-14 Keywords: The Hunting of the Snark | TheHuntingOfTheSnark | LaChasseAuSnark
September 14, 2025 at 10:03 AM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
※ Snark is legitimate conflict, which even can be a heated debate.
※ Boojum ist lethal.

«L.C. forgot that “the Snark” is a tragedy and [should] on no account be made jovial. h.h.» (Handwritten note by Henry Holiday on a page from a letter by C.L. Dodgson.)

snrk.de/the-snark-is-a-tragedy
※ Snark is legitimate conflict, which even can be a heated debate. ※ Boojum ist lethal. «L.C. forgot that “the Snark” is a tragedy and [should] on no account be made jovial. h.h.» Handwritten note by Henry Holiday on a page from a letter (The Chestnuts, Guilford, 1876-01-04) by C.L. Dodgson - aka Lewis Carroll - to Henry Holiday about Holiday’s illustration to the chapter "The Beaver’s Lesson". (Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20240707113735/https://pbagalleries.com/lot-details/index/catalog/384/lot/119222) See also: snrk.de/the-snark-is-a-tragedy To the illustrator Henry Holiday, Lewis Carroll’s "The Hunting of the Snark" was a “tragedy”. That might have been Carroll’s intention in 1874, when he started to write the poem as one of the many chapters of his Sylvie and Bruno project. But when the poem was published as a book in 1876 with more than 500 lines, it turned out to be a tragicomedy. To Carroll, the poem being a pure tragedy perhaps was not bearable. But today we live in the era of the Boojum, with more tragedy and less comedy.
September 11, 2025 at 3:27 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
My latest Snark finding in 2025: snrk.de/starry-map/
https://snrk.de/starry-map/ John Tufail’s “The Illuminated Snark” (p. 15) lead me to this comparison. In 2004 he interpreted the starry night sky in Henry Holiday’s front cover illustration to Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark” (1876) as a map, where the white clouds represented land with rivers. I liked the suggestion, but did not find any real-world map to which Holiday might have alluded. Holiday engraved that illustration himself. I discovered John Tufail’s paper in 2009. Only today, after 15 years, I got the idea to compress and flip a large segment of a map of the British isles vertically. That’s my “slowness in taking a jest”. You see the result. Sadly, I can’t tell John that anymore. I appreciated his guidance a lot. The white clouds weren’t the land, but as for a map having been hidden in the illustration, John was right.
April 1, 2025 at 9:26 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
I found that map _after_ I wrote an article about Henry Holiday's cover illustrations to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". (I didn't update that article before it was published in February 2025.)

bsky.app/profile/snar...
April 1, 2025 at 9:33 AM
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snark150.bsky.social
I joined the site of the Boojum.
Will that account stay or vanish away?
August 19, 2025 at 6:42 AM