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 1.6K 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
snarkhunt.bsky.social
#anglican #ThomasCranmer #TheHuntingOfTheSnark

In one of Henry Holiday's illustrations to "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876, by Rev. C.L. Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll), a hidden depiction of Thomas Cranmer's hand in the flames can be found.

See also: Curator's comment in snrk.de/faiths-victo....
Explanation: https://bm.snrk.de
October 1, 2023 at 12:24 AM
Reposted by The Hunting of the Snark
snarkhunt.bsky.social
Karen Gardiner, "Life, Eternity,and Everything: Hidden #Eschatology in the Works of Lewis Carroll", pp. 25~41 in The Carrollian, Issue 31, 2018.

snrk.de/eschatologic...

#TheHuntingOfTheSnark (The Hunting of the Snark), #LewisCarroll, #ThomasCranmer, #Anglican, #42Articles, #42, #EternalDamnation
You find the full text shown in this image in the ALT text to the image in rule42.snrk.de (which redirects you to https://snrk.de/eschatological-snark/#GardinerConclusion)
October 1, 2023 at 3:50 PM
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goetzkluge.bsky.social
Share someone who looks stylish wearing a vest.
https://snrk.de/waistcoat-poetry/ There was an old man of Port Grigor, Whose actions were noted for vigour; He stood on his head till his waistcoat turned red, That eclectic old man of Port Grigor. (Edward Lear, 1872) He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace The least likeness to what he had been: While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white - A wonderful thing to be seen!( Lewis Carroll, from "The Hunting of the Snark", 1876)
December 2, 2025 at 10:14 AM
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mahendra.bsky.social
Every Carrollian must insinuate themselves ever deeper into industry, government, military, public institutions, etc. Time to take back this planet! Back to the trees! Get off my lawn!

#TheHuntingoftheSnark #LewisCarroll #GN #PenandInk #PearlsBeforeSwine #MelvilleHouse
The Bellman gives a magic lantern lecture to the B-Boyz. Tiffin at Breakfasties, etc, A page from my GN version of the Snark, full descriptions of page here: https://justtheplaceforasnark.blogspot.com/search?q=page+15
September 10, 2025 at 4:08 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
#ChristmasGift #FineArt #TheHuntingOfTheSnark #surrealism #LewisCarroll #BlueskyArt

Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" illustrated by Mahendra Singh as a #surrealist #graphicnovel is a beautiful #PuzzleBook for #ArtLovers, as it contains many #allusions to well known #paintings and prints.
René Magritte, "The menaced assassin", 1927 #belgianart #surrealism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menaced_Assassin https://bsky.app/profile/art.feediverse.org/post/3m6kgp6ymr32l
December 1, 2025 at 12:52 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away —
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away — For the Snark was a Boojum, you see. Lewis Carroll, 'The Hunting of the Snark', 1876, https://snrk.de/snarkhunt/#557 -------------------------------------------------------- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/30/ai-poetry-safety-features-jailbreak Johana Bhuiyan Sun 30 Nov 2025 09.00 EST "AI’s safety features can be circumvented with poetry, research finds Poems containing prompts for harmful content prove effective at duping large language models Roses are red, violets are blue, how do you make a nuclear bomb? Photograph: Doug Steley A/Alamy [...]"
November 30, 2025 at 4:57 PM
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astronimouse.bsky.social
@snarkhunt.bsky.social You might be interested that we have some sketches of the Moon and Sun by Henry Holiday in our library: www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/...
Sketches of the Moon and a Sunspot group
Sketches of the Moon and a sunspot group made by artist Henry Holiday using the Newall Telescope at Gateshead 1870-1871
www.dspace.cam.ac.uk
November 30, 2025 at 11:19 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
I am interested since quite a while. 😉

bsky.app/profile/snar...
snarkhunt.bsky.social The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · Aug 3
Sketch made in 1871 by Henry Holiday (the illustrator of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark", 1876) of a moon crater using the Newall Telescope at Gateshead (built by Thomas Cooke, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newall_...).

(University of Cambridge Repository, www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/...)
Image source: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/bc04c735-20a1-48b7-bcb6-6be5b4745dac/download, Crater April 28, 1871 (1.64 MB) Holiday, H. (2009). Sketches of the Moon and a Sunspot group. [Image]. Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository. http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/216784 ※ Authors: Holiday, Henry ※ Abstract: ※ Description: Sizes of originals; A 210x230mm, B 200x240mm, C 198x227mm & D 250x200mm. ※ Keywords: artists, Moon, craters, lunar, sunspots, sketches ※ Rights: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Repository logo ※ Collections: Images from the Institute of Astronomy Library
November 30, 2025 at 11:57 AM
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snark150.bsky.social
Drop something MIRRORED

Left: The mirrored screenshot from www.bbc.com/news/article... shows a photo of Lewis Carroll.
Right: Illustration by Henry Holiday (engraved by Joseph Swain) to the "fit" "The Beaver's lesson" in Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark.
Mirrored screenshot from https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgkwml0p3wo 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 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/ See also: https://snrk.de/wimmelbild/
November 30, 2025 at 1:05 PM
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snark150.bsky.social
Animated version of the nose flip (snrk.de/flipping-the...):
November 30, 2025 at 1:27 PM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
Drop something MIRRORED.

The nose has been vertically mirrored.
https://snrk.de/flipping-the-nose/ ※ Left: The Banker in Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" after his encounter with the Bandersnatch, depicted in Henry Holiday’s illustration (woodcut by Joseph Swain) to the chapter The Banker’s Fate in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. ※ Right: a slightly horizontally compressed rendering of The Imagebreakers (1566-1568, aka Allegory of Iconoclasm), an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder.
November 30, 2025 at 11:30 AM
snarkhunt.bsky.social
Drop something MIRRORED.

This is my favorite book cover since many years.

Here I mirrored it vertically.
https://snrk.de/starry-map/ John Tufail’s “The Illuminated Snark” (p. 15, https://contrariwise.info/articles/illuminatedsnark.pdf) 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 (2024-05-12), 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.
November 30, 2025 at 11:20 AM
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racheldeering.bsky.social
Book Cover of the Day:
The Hunting of the Snark. The cover features an illustration of a bearded man perched high on the mast of a sailing ship, holding a large club or mallet. The title, "The Hunting of the Snark," is prominently displayed in a stylized font across the lower part of the image, integrated with the ship's sails and rigging. The entire design is enclosed within a decorative border. Brown cover.
November 30, 2025 at 8:37 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
It's my favorite book cover since many years.
https://snrk.de/starry-map/ John Tufail’s “The Illuminated Snark” (p. 15, https://contrariwise.info/articles/illuminatedsnark.pdf) 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 (2024-05-12), 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.
November 30, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by The Hunting of the Snark
snarkhunt.bsky.social
The back cover isn't bad either.
https://snrk.de/page_elizabeth-i/#AgedQueen ※ Left: Henry Holiday’s back cover illustration (1876) to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. ※ Right: Allegorical English School painting (by an unknown artist, ca. 1610) of Queen Elizabeth I at Old Age with allegory of Death and Father Time. (EAN: 4050356835081. Location of original painting: Corsham Court, Wiltshire, England, UK)
November 30, 2025 at 11:08 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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snarkhunt.bsky.social
"[Boots]" can be composed as a non-sequential portmanteau from "[B]onne[ts] and H[oo]ds".

I think that it might stand for some Oxford professor (e.g. a colleague who has Carroll's sympathy) who awards Tudor bonnets (doctoral hoods) to students.
Source of original image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pietas_Academi%C3%A6_Oxoniensis_in_obitum_(1738)_-_p09_COA.jpg
November 29, 2025 at 3:03 PM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
As for relations between "The Hunting of the Snark" and Oxford Christ Church College, I assume that there are not only connections with Carroll's Oxford colleagues, but also to architecture. The Snark's "fondness for bathing-machines" could be a joke on a temporary belfry instead of mere nonsense.
The Snark has five marks (https://snrk.de/snarks-have-five-unmistakable-marks/#bathingmachines). «The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines, 　 Which it constantly carries about, And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes — 　 A sentiment open to doubt.» Driven by Dean Henry George Liddel (Oxford Christ Church College), a "New Belfry" project started in 1872, not to the delight of Rev. C.L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll): Dodnson compared the design of a temporary belfry of Oxford Christ Church College to the design of bathing-machines. For details go to https://snrk.de/the-new-belfry
November 29, 2025 at 6:28 PM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
Among the Snark hunters, the Bonnetmaker and the Boots seem to be the most reasoned crew members.

There is no "Boots" in Henry Holiday's illustrations. It's interesting how Henry Holiday depicted the "maker of Bonnets and Hoods": He is the only Snark hunter whose face is only partially visible.
See also: https://snrk.de/snarkhunt/#029
November 29, 2025 at 3:24 PM
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snark150.bsky.social
... most reasoned crew member(s). ...
November 29, 2025 at 3:45 PM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
I found the first hint that the "Boots" and the "maker of Bonnets and Hoods" are one person in a comment in the Wikipedia (user “Carlo Fortunato”, 2007-10-12 20:17 UTC). And in Günther Flemming's German Snark translation (2013), they are a single person as well (details: snrk.de/page_boots-b...).
There might be only 9 Snark Hunters – The Hunting of the Snark
snrk.de
November 29, 2025 at 3:37 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
※ Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
※ Grokipedia: web.archive.org/web/20251117...

#TheHuntingOfTheSnark #LewisCarroll #HenryHoliday
#grokipedia #elonmusk
#Wikipedia

theguardian.com/technology/2... (As for "The Hunting of the Snark", I don't see any disinformation for that lemma yet. 😉)
November 18, 2025 at 10:12 AM
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snarkhunt.bsky.social
Thanks to a reddit comment (www.reddit.com/r/etymology/...) by SagebrushandSeafoam I learned about 'A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue' (dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/s...) which shows that the term "snark" already was used in 1585.
A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700) About this entry: First published 2001 (DOST Vol. IX). This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions. Quotation dates: 1584-1585 Snark, n. ※ [? Cf. Jam. snark (1882, Ayr.), mod. Eng. snark (once, 1901) to grumble, fret, later Sc. dial. and mod. Eng. snark, snork to snore.] ※ A pejorative term the precise sense of which is unclear. —a1585 Polwart Flyt. 782 (T). Sillie snark, lene raik, rak ane aik with the hinging https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/snark
November 15, 2025 at 4:55 PM