The Hunting of the Snark

About The Hunting of the Snark

 

A new edition of one of Carroll's most popular works in the classic illustrated version by Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast trilogy.

 

'Mervyn Peake has a magic in his pen. He can annihilate the dimensions.'

Charles Morgan, 1947

 

This is true of Peake's writing and his drawings, as these illustrations to Lewis Carroll's mock-heroic nonsense poem testify. Richly brought to life with some of Peake's most exquisite line drawings, The Hunting of the Snark (1876) is a brilliant marriage of two of the most inventive imaginations.

 

Lewis Carroll claimed that the inspiration for The Hunting of the Snark sprang from 'one line of verse – one solitary line of verse – "For the Snark was a Boojum, you see" ' that came to him one day in 1874 while he was out walking.

 

To questions asking whether the poem was an allegory, or a political satire, or contained some hidden moral, he claimed to have 'but one answer, "I don't know!" ' 

 

This edition, re-originated from original artwork, includes a selection of Peake's working sketches never before published.

The Author

Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake (1911-1968)

Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll (1832-98) is the renowned author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There (1871).