Ocean-Chart [The Bellman’s Map]
- Title:
- Ocean-Chart [The Bellman’s Map]
- Alternate Title:
- Ocean-Chart [The Bellman’s Map]
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Carroll, Lewis
- Other Creators:
- Carroll, Lewis
- Date:
- 1874
- Posted Date:
- 2017-04-14
- ID Number:
- 1079.01
- Collection Number:
- 8548
- File Name:
- PJM_1079_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1870 - 1899
- Subject:
- Satirical
Allegorical - Measurement:
- 19 x 13 page (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- The famous "Bellman's Map" from The Hunting of the Snark - entirely blank, except for notations at random places in the margins: Equator, Equinox, South Pole, Zenith, Nadir, Torrid Zone, etc. Preparing for their trip to hunt the mysterious Snark, the voyagers praise the Bellman as one of carriage, ease, grace, solemnity and wisdom: "He had bought a large map representing the sea, Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be A map they could all understand. 'What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?' So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply 'They are merely conventional signs! Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes! But we've got our brave Captain to thank: (So the crew would protest) that he's bought us the best - A perfect and absolute blank!'"
There is much debate over the meaning of The Hunting of the Snark. Perhaps the best answer comes from Carroll himself, in a letter written shortly before his death: "I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense! Still, you know, words mean much more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant. So whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm very glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best that I've seen is . . . that the whole book is an allegory on the search after happiness. I think this fits beautifully in many ways. . . . people have since tried to find the meanings in it. The one I like best (which I think is partly my own) is that it may be taken as an allegory for the pursuit of happiness." Quoted in Gardner 2006, xxxii-xxxiii. Indeed, it is easy to see The Bellman's Map itself as an allegorical commentary on the search for happiness.
While the cover page recites that Henry Holiday did "nine illustrations" for this edition, there are in fact ten illustrations if one includes the Bellman's Map. For this reason, as well as reasons of style, it seems very unlikely that the map was done by Holiday and more likely that it was produced by a typesetter. I am indebted for this information to a Snark Hunter from Munich.
This is one of the few known maps parodying the mapmaking process itself, “a small body of late-nineteenth-century satires that mocked the ideal of mapping.” Edney 2019, 9-10. There are two other such maps in the collection, both by Mark Twain: ID #1073, “Mark Twain's Map of Paris” (1870), and ID #2511, “Map of The Salt Lick Branch of The Pacific R.R.” (1873) from The Gilded Age. For an extended discussion of the significance of these works, see Edney 2019, 11-26.
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Carroll, Lewis. 1891. The Hunting of the Snark: an Agony in eight Fits. New York: Macmillan and Co.
- Cite As:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography, #8548. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.