Jabberwocky

This is an attractive and amusing illustrated version of Carroll’s poem. The basic question, with us ever since Tenniel’s original attempt to give the Jabberwock pictorial form, is whether it should really be done at all. The poem is language at its most freely creative, and there is force in the argument that children in turn should be free to create their own pictures from the sounds, without a mediator. As illustrators go, however, Stewart has to rank among the best. His creatures are zany and witty, especially the borogoves in their hammocks and the mome raths, a musical duo. The final double spread, the victorious swordsman worn out in his hammock like everyone else (including the moon) after a busy day, is especially effective. A succession of small used postage stamps mysteriously appear at page corners, neatly composing a parallel philatelic narrative. Stewart is an able interpreter of Carroll’s imagination but, like all his predecessors, inevitably stands in the poet’s light.