The Hunting of the Snark. An Agony in Eight Fits. First Edition, Eighteenth Thousand, 1876

CARROLL, Lewis [HOLIDAY, Henry, illustrator]. The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876.

First Edition, later printing, eighteenth thousand. Octavo (8vo), 83, [1] pp. Publisher’s original red pictorial cloth, covers decorated in gilt, spine lettered in gilt, all edges gilt, dark green coated endpapers. Frontispiece and eight illustrations by Henry Holiday, with tissue guards. Publisher’s advertisement leaf at rear listing Carroll’s works and contemporary translations. Binder’s ticket of Burn & Co. to rear pastedown.

An early Macmillan printing of Carroll’s great nonsense poem, issued the same year as the first edition. The Hunting of the Snark is among Carroll’s most enduring works beyond the Alice books, following an improbable crew in pursuit of an impossible creature, and is memorably illustrated throughout by Henry Holiday.

Contents clean and unmarked overall, with light toning and intermittent foxing. Small stains to the dedication leaf and terminal leaves. Binding remains sound and firm. Cloth and gilt remain bright and attractive, with bumped corners, light rubbing to extremities, and shelfwear with fraying and chipping to head and tail of spine. Lower portion of rear board with bubbling to cloth. A solid and attractive early printing of Carroll’s comic verse in the publisher’s original gilt-decorated cloth.