The Hunting of the Snark Gardner sees the poem as dealing with existential angst, and states that the Baker may be Carroll's satire of himself, pointing to the fact that the Baker was named after a beloved uncle, as was Carroll, and that the two were around the same age at the time of the writing of the poem. Alternatively, Larry Shaw of the fan magazine "Inside and Science Fiction Advertiser" suggests that the Boots, being the Snark, actually murdered the Baker. Also references to religious issues had been suggested, like the Baker's 42 boxes being a reference to Thomas Cranmer's "Forty-Two Articles" with a
Lewis Carroll of which one has survived: "La Guida di Bragia". In 1856, he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in "The Train" under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll". This pseudonym was a play on his real name: "Lewis" was the anglicised form of "Ludovicus", which was the Latin for "Lutwidge", and "Carroll" an Irish surname similar to the Latin name "Carolus", from which comes the name "Charles". The transition went as follows: "Charles Lutwidge" translated into Latin as "Carolus Ludovicus". This was then translated back into English