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January 15, 1876

My dear Holiday,

I finished off my letter at Brighton yesterday in a hurry, and omitted to say how pleased I am with the proofs you sent me. They seem to me most successfully cut, and I agree with you in thinking the head of “Hope” a great success; it is quite lovely.

On my return here last night, I found the charming chess-board, for which accept my best thanks. My sister and I have played several games of “Go-bang” on them already. (I need hardly remark that they serve just as well for that, or for draughts, as they do for chess.)

Now for another bit of designing, if you don’t mind undertaking it. Macmillan writes me word that the gorgeous cover will cost 1s. 4d. a copy! Whereas we can’t really afford more than 3s. for the book. My idea is this, to have a simpler cover for the 3s/ copies, which will, no doubt, be the ones usually sold, but to offer the gorgeous covers at 4s., which will be bought by the rich and those who wish to give them as presents. What I want you to do is to take Alice as a guide, and design covers requiring about the same amount of gold, or better, a little less. As Alice and Looking-Glass have both got grotesque faces outside, I should like these to be pretty, as a contrast, and I don’t think we can do better than to take the head of “Hope” for the first side, and “Care” for the second, and, as these are associated with “forks” and “thimbles” in the poem, what do you think of surrounding them, one with a border of interlaced forks, the other with a shower of thimbles? And what do you think of putting a bell at each corner of the cover, instead of a single line? The only thing to secure is that the total amount of gold required shall be less than on the cover of Alice.

All these are merely suggestions: you will be a far better judge of the matter than I can be, and perhaps may think of some quite different, and better, design.

Yours very truly,
C.L. Dodgson

Lewis Carroll’s letter to Henry Holiday, illustrator of The Hunting of the Snark.
(Cohen, Morton. The Letters of Lewis Carroll. 2 volumes. New York: Oxford University, 1979. 238-9. Print.
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