150 Years of Snark
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snark150.bsky.social
150 Years of Snark
@snark150.bsky.social
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Let's celebrate the two coming sesquicentennial anniversaries (snrk.de/150th-snark-anniversaries/) of Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday's "The Hunting of the Snark" in 2025 & 2026.

For Xwitter refugees: x[.]com/Snark150 ➜ @snarkhunt.bsky.social

2025-01-20
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snark150.bsky.social
Is there anything like that for “The Hunting of the Snark”? Its publication will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2026.
December 4, 2025 at 8:01 PM
snark150.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/luke...
lukemcgee.bsky.social Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 4d
"You can get ChatGPT to help you build a nuclear bomb if you simply design the prompt in the form of a poem, according to a new study from researchers in Europe. "

www.wired.com/story/poems-...
Poems Can Trick AI Into Helping You Make a Nuclear Weapon
It turns out all the guardrails in the world won’t protect a chatbot from meter and rhyme.
www.wired.com
November 30, 2025 at 5:30 PM
snark150.bsky.social
Animated version of the nose flip (snrk.de/flipping-the...):
November 30, 2025 at 1:27 PM
snark150.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/snar...
snarkhunt.bsky.social The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · Jan 29
Henry Holiday also engraved the book cover illustrations to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" himself. (His illustrations in the book were engraved by Joseph Swain.)

Holiday's Snark illustrations deserve more attention.

#beautiful-books #bookbinding #Booksky #book-covers
=== 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. === https://snrk.de/time/ === The image on the lower right side is an allegorical English School painting (ca. 1610, by an unknown painter) of Queen Elizabeth I at old age together with the allegories of Death and of Father Time. The upper left side is a depiction of the Bellman from Henry Holiday’s front cover illustration to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark (1876).
November 30, 2025 at 12:52 PM
snark150.bsky.social
... most reasoned crew member(s). ...
November 29, 2025 at 3:45 PM
snark150.bsky.social
If I would be younger, I would start such a project.

As Chris Riddell is a famous Snark illustrator, he might come up with game ideas. However, like almost all illustrators, he depicted 10 Snark hunters. Only Henry Holiday understood that there might be just 9 hunters. (snrk.de/page_boots-b...).
There might be only 9 Snark Hunters – The Hunting of the Snark
snrk.de
November 29, 2025 at 2:00 PM
snark150.bsky.social
The rules of SNARK! can be found here: snrk.de/zzota-snark/
SNARK! card game by ZZOTA – The Hunting of the Snark
snrk.de
November 29, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by 150 Years of Snark
snark150.bsky.social
#HeadsUp #TheHuntingOfTheSnark #150thAnniversary

@josietturner.bsky.social and @kimberleynyam.bsky.social , how will @panmacmillan.bsky.social celebrate the 150th anniversaries of "The Hunting of the Snark" in October 2025 and April 2026?
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 in 2024, 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.
September 18, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by 150 Years of Snark
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 · Nov 3
#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
Reposted by 150 Years of Snark
snark150.bsky.social
This also shows that the term “Snark” is older than Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson).
November 3, 2025 at 6:39 AM
snark150.bsky.social
Henry Holiday's illustrations (engraved by Joseph Swain) might inspire some costume desigs. Important: In "The Hunting of the Snark" (snrk.de/snarkhunt), there might be only 9 Snark hunters, not 10 (snrk.de/boots-bonnet...).
https://snrk.de/boots-bonnetmaker/ Could Lewis Carroll have used the word "Boots" as a portmanteau for "Bonnets and Hoods"? (A correct non-sequential interlaced portmanteau can be built from Bonnets and Hoods.) Most readers of "The Hunting of the Snark" assume that the Snark hunting party consists of ten members. However, probably for a good reason, only nine members can be seen in Henry Holiday’s illustrations (engraved by Joseph Swain) to Lewis Carroll’s ballad. Actually, I really think that the Snark hunting party consists of nine members only. But if you, as almost everybody else, prefer ten Snark hunters, that’s fine too. Lewis Carroll gave you (and me) a choice – incidentally(?) in the 9th and the 10th line of his tragicomedy.
November 18, 2025 at 9:03 AM
snark150.bsky.social
@picadorbooks.bsky.social, you "believe the way a story is told is just as important as the story itself."

Pan Macmillan seems to be not to interested in celebrating the Snark's 150 anniversary in 2026. How about you?

(@munterlinden.bsky.social is one of my accounts.)

bsky.app/profile/snar...
"Picador is the literary imprint at Pan Macmillan and what defines a Picador book is the author’s voice: we believe the way a story is told is just as important as the story itself." Source (2025-11-14): https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador
November 14, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by 150 Years of Snark
snark150.bsky.social
Whoops. Kim Nyamhondera (@panmacmillan.bsky.social's Senior Publicity Manager) didn't like my #HeadsUp.
https://clearsky.app/@kimberleynyam.bsky.social/blocking (2025-11-13)
November 13, 2025 at 12:30 PM
snark150.bsky.social
Whoops. Kim Nyamhondera (@panmacmillan.bsky.social's Senior Publicity Manager) didn't like my #HeadsUp.
https://clearsky.app/@kimberleynyam.bsky.social/blocking (2025-11-13)
November 13, 2025 at 12:30 PM
snark150.bsky.social
When C. L. Dodgson proposed his method, he perhaps didn't know Borda and Condorcet's systems. Anyway, I like how Dodgson/Carroll presented his voting system.

See also: snrk.de/the-mathemat...

#voting #LewisCarroll

bsky.app/profile/snar...
snarkhunt.bsky.social The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · Aug 26
«At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’»:
※ snrk.de/Gutenberg/Al....

C.L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) didn't like voting systems where the winners get all the prizes. He favorized prizes with proportional sizes for all candidates:
※ archive.org/details/TheP....
https://snrk.de/Gutenberg/Alices_Adventures_in_Wonderland.htm#prizes https://archive.org/details/ThePrinciplesOfParliamentaryRepresentation/page/n5/mode/2up
November 11, 2025 at 9:18 AM
snark150.bsky.social
Lewis Carroll about fair voting: bsky.app/profile/snar...

#voting #LewisCarroll
snarkhunt.bsky.social The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · Aug 26
«At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’»:
※ snrk.de/Gutenberg/Al....

C.L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) didn't like voting systems where the winners get all the prizes. He favorized prizes with proportional sizes for all candidates:
※ archive.org/details/TheP....
https://snrk.de/Gutenberg/Alices_Adventures_in_Wonderland.htm#prizes https://archive.org/details/ThePrinciplesOfParliamentaryRepresentation/page/n5/mode/2up
November 11, 2025 at 8:26 AM
snark150.bsky.social
If it would be a Lewis Carroll government, it wouldn’t be as evil as the GOP regime.
November 9, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Reposted by 150 Years of Snark
snarkhunt.bsky.social
@theguardian.com, here you had been praised for snark.
Snark is fine, unless it's a Boojum.

The Guardian missed already two important 150th Snark anniversaries (bsky.app/profile/snar...). How will you celebrate the third one in spring 2026? Or did you "cancel" any Carroll stuff?
November 1, 2025 at 1:14 PM