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: A Biography intimate woman-friends that Dodgson had through his life, yet still concludes that his existence revolved exclusively around friendships with small girls!" Jo Elwyn Jones and J. Francis Gladstone in "The Alice Companion: A Guide to Lewis Carroll's Alice Books" (1998) criticises the book for what they say is a poor treatment of Carroll's involvement in controversies at the University of Oxford. Megan Harlan in "Entertainment Weekly" writes that "This beautifully written bio never shies away from the house-of-mirrors complexity of its subject." An issue of "Victorian Studies" reported that there were issues with inconsistent references. Miles Edward Friend compares Cohen's