No Mistake

From Henry Holiday's illustrations to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876)

[left]: Segment from an Illustration by Henry Holiday to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876). [right, mirror view]: The Bone Player (1856) by William Sidney Mount, now displayed in MFA, Boston. See also: www.academia.edu/9889413/The_Bankers_Face

See also: www.academia.edu/9964379/Schnarkverschlimmbesserung In a 1910 edition of The Hunting of the Snark , an alledged error, which is not an error, had been removed. However, the removed white spot had a reason, as you see in the inset. The inset shows a segment from a 1876 edition with the white spot and a segment from The Bone Player (1856) by William Sidney Mount with a white spot (depicting a reflection from a glass). [left]: Segment from an Illustration by Henry Holiday to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876). [right, mirror view]: The Bone Player (1856) by William Sidney Mount, now displayed in MFA, Boston.

From Henry Holiday's illustrations to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) Illustration (1876) by Henry Holiday (engraved by Joseph Swain) to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark depicting the Bellman (a cartoonish version with bigger nose), the Baker, the Barrister, the Billard marker (dipicted only in this illustration), the Banker (looks different in some other illustrations), the Bonnet maker (half hidden face; only in this illustration, perhaps an "Assistenzselbstbildnis" of Henry Holiday) and the Broker. Whatsoever, on board of that snarked vessel you probably can forget about playing billards anyway.

Detail from an illustration by Henry Holiday to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) Henry Holiday chopped off the chin.

This was my first image showing Henry Holiday's depiction of the Billiard marker in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876). The face in color and in the background is Henry George Liddell 's face (painted by Sir Hubert von Herkomer in 1891). Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford. In this image, I had been fooling around a bit: I gave Liddell the Billiard marker's wig. And I gave Liddel's chin back to the Billiard marker. I am not hiding anything: The red dots indicate my manipulations, and in the lower part of the image you can see the unmanipulated elements. Later I discovered, that the comparison between Liddell at age 28 and a draft by Holiday's of the Billiard marker yielded a much stronger resemblance: Perhaps Carroll/Dodgson did not accept such an obvious resemblance. So Holiday finally showed an older Billiard marker with a wig (which slipped a bit out of position) . Holiday also chopped off the Billard marker's chin, but left its shadow in his illustration. That is no mistake. Thus, the real Liddell would not really be able to find himself depicted as the Billiard marker playing foul in the Snark . However, the shadow just could be a bow tie. Who knows?

[right]: Henry Holiday's depiction of the Billiard marker in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . The face in color is Henry George Liddell's face (by Hubert von Herkomer) . Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford. (In the image I wrote "George Henry Liddell". But I am to lazy to correct that mistake now.) [left]: The left image shows Holiday's draft for the right picture and an image depicting Liddell at age 28. That clear resemblance in Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker to Carroll's boss perhaps was a bit too much for Carroll. In the right picture the resemblance is weaker, but the asymmetry of the eyes and eyebrows still is there. In that final illustration Holiday was more cautious: He gave an older Liddell a wig (which slipped a bit out of position) and chopped of his chin.

The comparison shows (left side) a reproduction of Henry Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker for an illustration to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and a redrawn detail (right side) from a portrait by George Cruikshan of Henry George Liddell's face. Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford. The portrait by George Cruikshan shows Liddell at age 28. The resemblance of Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker to Carroll's boss perhaps was a bit too risky for Carroll. The similarity wasn't sufficiently deniable. In the final illustration Holiday was more cautious: He gave an older Liddell a wig (which slipped a bit out of position) and chopped of his chin.

· from www.academia.edu/9964379/Schnarkverschlimmbesserung [1910]: Illustration by Henry Holiday (illustrator) and Joseph Swain (wood cutter) to the chapter The Banker's Fate in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark ("corrected" by Macmillan in 1910) [1876]: Detail from an illustration by Henry and Swain to the chapter The Banker's Fate in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1st edition, 1876) [1856]: Detail (mirror view) from The Bone Player (1856) by William Sidney Mount, now displayed in MFA, Boston. “Improvement” in German is “Verbesserung”. If things get worse, a “Verschlimmerung” has happened. Jokingly (Germans sometimes can do that) we call “Verschlimmbesserung” what has been made worse after someone tried to improve it. That is what the publisher Macmillan did about 100 years ago. They removed a white spot from the illustration by Henry Holiday (illustrator) and Joseph Swain (wood cutter) to the chapter The Banker's Fate in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876). I found this Verschlimmbesserung in a smaller low-quality Snark edition published by Macmillan in 1910. Perhaps the publisher thought that the white spot was Joseph Swain's mistake. But would Henry Holiday and C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) have tolerated such a mistake? As these perfectionists wouldn't have accepted any bad craftsmanship, the white spot must have had a purpose: