“The human understanding, once it has adopted opinions, either because they were already accepted and believed, or because it likes them, draws everything else to support and agree with them. And though it may meet a greater number and weight of contrary instances, it will, with great and harmful prejudice, ignore or exclude them by introducing some distinction, in order that the authority of those earlier assumptions may remain intact and unharmed.”
Francis Bacon (from Novum Organum, 1620)
Since 1876, most readers of The Hunting of the Snark assume that the Snark hunting party consists of 10 members.
However, probably for a good reason, only 9 members can be seen in Henry Holiday’s illustrations (engraved by Joseph Swain) to Lewis Carroll’s ballad. Since 1876 almost all Snark readers have accepted that there seems to be no Boots in any of Holiday’s illustrations. I think that the Snark hunting party consists of 9 members only (including the Beaver). But if you, as almost everybody else, prefer 10 Snark hunters, that’s fine too. Lewis Carroll gave us a choice – incidentally or intentionally in the 9th and the 10th line of his tragicomedy.
Let us take all the crew members in order of their introduction:
- The Bellman, their captain.
- The Boots, a maker of Bonnets and Hoods.
(A correct non-sequential interlaced portmanteau can be built from Bonnets and Hoods.)
- The Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes, but repeatedly complained about the Beaver’s evil lace-making.
- The Broker, to value their goods.
- The Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense, might perhaps have won more than his share. From John Tufail I learned that in Henry Holiday’s illustration the Billiard-marker is preparing a cheat.
- The Banker, engaged at enormous expense, had the whole of their cash in his care.
- The Beaver, that paced on the deck or would sit making lace in the bow and had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck, though none of the sailors knew how.
- The Baker, also addressed by “Fry me!”, “Fritter my wig!”, “Candle-ends” as well as “Toasted-cheese”, and known for joking with hyenas and walking paw-in-paw with a bear.
- The Butcher, who only could kill Beavers, but later became best friend with the lace-making animal.
More about the cast of Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday’s Snark tragicomedy:
⭐
⭘ Care and Hope
⭘ The Snark
⭘ The Boojum
For your comments: Bluesky
2017-11-06, updated: 2026-02-11
