When Lewis Carroll started writing "The Hunting of the Snark" in 1874, he was already 42 years old, just like the "anonymous" hero of the poem, the Butcher. However, Carroll himself was "famous". He taught mathematics at Christ College, Oxford and had written the two "Alices" that had already made him very popular among children of his time. But his new book was not destined to have the same impact, at least from the beginning: it was no longer a novel but a poem, which not only did not have a child as its central character, but did not even refer to the world of children. The fairy tale had given way to a strange adventure, where everything a child could admire was scarce, while the darkest irony abounded, where adults could immerse themselves in daring interpretations.