The Hunting of the Snark – Lewis Carroll and Mahendra Singh
The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by Mahendra Singh / hardcover from Melville House / ISBN 9781935554240
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“Singh’s black-and-white surrealistic treatment of Carroll’s classic poem is perfect…takes the ideology of Carroll’s nonsense to new visual levels. Far beyond a simplistic, literal depiction of the poem, each panel is thoughtfully created, filled with puzzles, jokes, and allusions.”–Library Journal
The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll’s classic masterpiece of nonsense verse, takes the reader on a wonderfully witty and inventive hunt for the ever-elusive Snark. The tantalizing mysteries of the poem are here perfectly matched in these brilliant new illustrations by artist Mahendra Singh, who has created a visual treasure hunt, full of riddles, puns, and allusions.
When asked what his poem meant, Carroll would always reply that he did not know. But, on one occasion, he did write to friends that perhaps “…the whole book is an allegory on the search for happiness.”
“To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope,
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!”
Mahendra Singh is an illustrator and longstanding Lewis Carroll aficionado. He is a member of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and an editor for their journal, the Knight Letter. For Singh, creating the illustrations for The Hunting of the Snark “has been a labor of love—fitting Lewis Carroll into a proto-Surrealist straitjacket with matching Dada cufflinks.”
