Lewis Carroll gives "1872" as the date of publication.) Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects changes in Dodgson's life. His father's death in 1868 plunged him into a depression that lasted some years. In 1876, Dodgson produced his next great work, "The Hunting of the Snark", a fantastical "nonsense" poem exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of nine tradesmen and one beaver, who set off to find the snark. It received largely mixed reviews from Carroll's contemporary reviewers, but was enormously popular with the public, having been reprinted seventeen times between 1876 and 1908, and has seen various adaptations into musicals,
The Spider and the Fly (poem) Lewis Carroll was readying "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song with a parody of Howitt's poem. "The Mock Turtle's Song", in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", is a parody of Howitt's poem; it mimics the meter and rhyme scheme, and parodies the first line, but not the subject matter, of the original. The Spider and the Fly (poem) The Spider and the Fly is a poem by Mary Howitt (1799–1888), published in 1828. The first line of the poem is "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said