THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK. An Agony, in Eight Fits

1876. With Nine Illustrations by Henry Holiday. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876. 1 page undated ads. Original deep red cloth pictorially decorated in black, all page edges gilt.

First Edition, special dark-red binding, which consisted of 100 copies. This is a poetical nonsense tale, both funny and subtle, that "describes with infinite humour the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature" [WM&G]. The crew consists of a Bellman, a Bonnet-Maker, a Barrister, a Broker, a Billiard-Maker, a Banker, a Butcher, a Baker, a Beaver and (the only one not illustrated) "a Boots." In his dedicatory verse to Gertrude Chataway, Carroll hid the child's name twice. Standard copies were issued in buff-colored cloth (with the same elaborate pictorial decoration, but in black). According to WM&G, "It is doubtful whether any variant coloured bindings were for sale, other than buff or red; the other colours seem to have been bound specially for Dodgson, who wrote to Macmillan on 21 Mar. 1876 ordering: '100 in red and gold, 20 in dark blue and gold, 20 in white vellum and gold'..." (Dodgson had a few others bound just for himself, possibly in light blue, light green and dark green.) This is a very good-plus copy, with (as usual) some wear at the spine ends; the covers have some rubbing, but the original endpapers are not cracked at all. In all, this is an attractive book, with the gilt standing out well against this dark red cloth. Williams Madan & Green 115.