The Hunting of the Snark, An Agony in Eight Fits was published by Macmillan & Co. in 1876. Holiday’s designs for the illustrations were engraved on wood by the firm of Joseph Swain. Holiday was first introduced to Lewis Carroll (the Rev. C. L. Dodgson) in 1870 in Oxford and the two became life-long friends. In 1875 Carroll wrote to him asking if he would design Illustrations for the Hunting of the Snark. Holiday explained in his Reminiscences how the project proceeded:
He wrote to me, asking if I would design three illustrations to The Hunting of the Snark, in three cantos, of which he sent me the MS. It was a new kind of work and interested me. I began them at once, and sent him the first sketches, but he had in the meantime written another canto, and asked for a drawing for it; I sent this, but meantime he had written a new canto, and wanted another illustration; and this went on till he pulled up at the eighth canto, making, with the frontispiece, nine illustrations. We had much correspondence of a friendly character over the drawings. [244-45]
Despite Holiday’s inexperience in drawing on wood his drawings are startling and original and not what one might have expected from this artist. He has captured the grotesqueness of the characters magnificently which fit perfectly with Carroll’s text. Forest Reid acknowledged this about the illustrations writing: ““Henry Holiday’s for The Hunting of the Snark in their decorative beauty carry on the true Pre-Raphaelite tradition bringing it into the world of the grotesque” (29). Holiday’s style of illustration for this book complements that of John Tenniel’s for Carroll’s Alice books.
Charles Mitchell’s essay on “The Designs for the Snark” has described Holiday’s elaborate working methods for these illustrations. Once Holiday had decided on his initial pictorial composition he first made a drawing, usually in pencil on paper, of about the same size as the intended wood engraving. He then made a more finished design in pencil on larger paper, generally with the aid of living models posed in the positions previously established by his initial compositional drawing. He also made detailed studies of whole figures or parts of them to aid his ultimate design. Finally based on these studies he completed his final design in pencil or ink on board, sometimes larger than the intended wood engraving. The outlines of this design were then transferred in reverse via tracing paper to the woodblock, sometimes with the aid of photography. The finished design was then sharpened up on the woodblock with very hard pencil in the most elaborate detail so that the engraver knew exactly what to reproduce (Tanis and Dooley Eds., Snark, 108).
The Illustrations
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The Bellman in the ship’s rigging – Front cover design
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The Landing –The Bellman carrying the Banker ashore by a finger entwined in his hair. The model for the Bellman was Holiday’s father. Frontispiece.
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The Crew on Board (The Crew was Complete) – This shows the seven human members of the crew. Page 5.
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The Butcher and the Beaver – The Butcher has an axe in his left hand while the Beaver kept looking in the opposite direction. Page 10
- The Baker’s Tale – This shows the Baker and his elderly uncle conversing. Page 31.
- The Hunting – This portrays the crew armed with various weapons along with two allegorical figures that Holiday introduced, Care and Hope. The Beaver holds a microscope. Page 41.
- The Beaver’s Lesson – This shows the Beaver being instructed by the Butcher, the pair being surrounded by various fantastic creatures. Page 52.
- The Barrister’s Dream – This shows a courtroom scene with the Snark dressed as a barrister and holding a writ. Page 62.
- The Banker’s Fate – This shows the transformation of the Banker who is seated in a chair. Page 74.
- The Vanishing – This shows the disappearance of the Baker. Page 82.
- The Tolling Buoy – back cover design. This was based on a sketch Holiday had previously drawn on a boat trip to Liverpool a year or so after his return from India in 1872.
Bibliography
Henry Holiday 1839–1927. London: William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, 1989, cat. 42, 11.
Holiday, Henry. Reminiscences of My Life. London: Heinemann, 1914.
Reid, Forrest. Illustrators of the Sixties. London: Faber & Gwyer Ltd., 1928.
Suriano, Gregory R. The Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 200. 256-57.
Tanis, James and John Dooley Eds. Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, A Centennial Edition. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, 1981, 244-46.
Last modified 18 January 2023