Editing Jabberwocky (section)

==Origin and publication==
[[File:Aliceroom2.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Alice entering the [[Looking-Glass world]]. Illustration by [[John Tenniel]], 1871]]
A decade before the publication of ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' and the sequel ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'', Carroll wrote the first stanza to what would become "Jabberwocky" while in [[Croft-on-Tees]], where his parents resided. It was printed in 1855 in ''[[Mischmasch]]'', a periodical he wrote and illustrated for the amusement of his family. The piece, titled "Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry", reads:

{{blockquote|<poem>
Twas bryllyg, and þ<sup>e</sup> slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in þ<sup>e</sup> wabe:
All mimsy were þ<sup>e</sup> borogoves;
And þ<sup>e</sup> mome raths outgrabe.
</poem>}}

The stanza is printed first in faux-mediaeval lettering as a "relic of ancient Poetry" (in which ''þ<sup>e</sup>'' is [[English articles#Ye form|a form of the word ''the'']]) and printed again "in modern characters".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lewis-carroll-juvenilia-stanza-of-anglo-saxon-poetry |title=Lewis Carroll juvenilia: 'Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry' |publisher=The British Library |date=2014-04-16 |access-date=2016-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109144006/http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lewis-carroll-juvenilia-stanza-of-anglo-saxon-poetry |archive-date=9 Nov 2016}}</ref>
The rest of the poem was written during Carroll's stay with relatives at [[Whitburn, Tyne and Wear|Whitburn]], near [[Sunderland]]. The story may have been partly inspired by the local Sunderland area legend of the [[Lambton Worm]]<ref>''A Town Like Alice's'' (1997) Michael Bute Heritage Publications, Sunderland</ref><ref>''Alice in Sunderland'' (2007) Brian Talbot Dark Horse publications.</ref> and the tale of the [[Sockburn Worm]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.englandsnortheast.co.uk/CroftLewisCarroll.html|title=Vikings and the Jabberwock: Croft, Sockburn and Sadberge|access-date=7 July 2017}}</ref>

The concept of nonsense verse was not original to Carroll, who would have known of [[chapbooks]] such as ''[[The World Turned Upside Down]]''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-world-turned-upside-down-18th-century/ |title=The World Turned Upside Down (18th century) |publisher=The Public Domain Review |access-date=2016-08-10}}</ref> and stories such as "[[The Grand Panjandrum]]". Nonsense existed in [[Shakespeare]]'s work and was well-known in the [[Brothers Grimm]]'s fairytales, some of which are called lying tales or ''lügenmärchen''.<ref>Carpenter (1985), 55–56</ref> Biographer [[Roger Lancelyn Green]] suggested that "Jabberwocky" was a parody of the German ballad "[[The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains]]",<ref Name="Lucas">"Jabberwocky back to Old English: Nonsense, Anglo-Saxon and Oxford" by Lucas, Peter J. in ''Language History and Linguistic Modelling'' (1997) p503-520 {{ISBN|978-3-11-014504-5}}</ref><ref Name="Hudson">Hudson, Derek (1977) ''Lewis Carroll: an illustrated biography''. Crown Publishers, 76</ref><ref>{{cite book | title=The Making of the Alice Books: Lewis Carroll's Uses of Earlier Children's Literature | author=Ronald Reichertz | publisher=McGill-Queen's Press | year=2000 | isbn=0-7735-2081-3 | page=99 }}</ref> which had been translated into English by Carroll's cousin [[Menella Bute Smedley]] in 1846.<ref Name="Hudson"/><ref>Martin Gardner (2000) ''The Annotated Alice''. New York: Norton p 154, n. 42.</ref> Historian Sean B. Palmer suggests that Carroll was inspired by a section from Shakespeare's ''[[Hamlet]]'', citing the lines: "The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead&nbsp;/ Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets" from Act&nbsp;I, Scene&nbsp;i.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://inamidst.com/notes/hamwocky |title="Hamlet and Jabberwocky" ''Essays by Sean Palmer'' 21 Aug 2005 |publisher=Inamidst.com |date=2005-08-21 |access-date=2018-10-03}}</ref><ref>Carroll makes later reference to the same lines from ''Hamlet'' Act I, Scene i in the 1869 poem "Phantasmagoria". He wrote: "Shakspeare {{sic}} I think it is who treats&nbsp;/ Of Ghosts, in days of old,&nbsp;/ Who 'gibbered in the Roman streets".</ref>
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[[John Tenniel]] reluctantly agreed to illustrate the book in 1871,<ref Name="Prickett"/> and his illustrations are still the defining images of the poem. The illustration of the Jabberwock may reflect the contemporary Victorian obsession with [[natural history]] and the fast-evolving sciences of [[palaeontology]] and [[geology]]. Stephen Prickett notes that in the context of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] and [[Gideon Mantell|Mantell's]] publications and vast exhibitions of dinosaurs, [[Crystal Palace Dinosaurs|such as those at the Crystal Palace]] from 1854, it is unsurprising that Tenniel gave the Jabberwock "the leathery wings of a [[pterodactyl]] and the long scaly neck and tail of a [[sauropod]]."<ref Name="Prickett">Prickett, Stephen (2005) ''Victorian Fantasy'' Baylor University Press p80 {{ISBN|1-932792-30-9}}</ref>