"The Hunting of the Snark" was first published in 1876, eleven years after "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and four years after "Through the Looking-Glass." It is a master-piece of nonsense and is connected to "Through the Looking-Glass" by its use of vocabulary from the poem "Jabberwocky." "The Hunting of the Snark" is a strangely dark poem, and some critics believe that its themes-insanity and death-are rather too adult in nature for children's literature. We know, nonetheless, that Lewis Carroll intended the poem to be enjoyed by children: he dedicated the book in acrostic verse to his...

Lewis Carrolls "The Hunting of the Snark" is perhaps the most frequently translated and parodied English language poems into Russian. It is quite possible that no other country has managed to inspire so many translators to have a go at the difficult translation. Somehow, Lewis Carrolls poem has spoken to the Russian soul. The first person to produce a full Russian translation of the Snark is Victor Fet, who managed this feat in 1975. Not only a translator, Fet is also a Russian poet himself, a biology professor, a world-class expert on scorpions, and a particularly effective literary sleuth....