Long description

The image shows two facing pages from the book Through the Looking-glass. On the left-hand page is the text introducing the poem. At the top of the page are the words ‘It was like this’. This is followed by the first stanza of the poem set in italics and back-to-front like a mirror image. Below this are the words: ‘She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. “Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course. And, if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.” This was the poem that Alice read’. This is followed by the poem’s title ‘Jabberwocky’ in italicised capital letters, and then the first four of the seven stanzas making up the poem, also set in italics. The first stanza is as follows: ‘’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’ The second stanza is as follows: ‘“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”’ The third stanza is as follows: ‘He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought – So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.’ The fourth stanza is as follows: ‘And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!’ On the right-hand page is John Tenniel’s illustration of the Jabberwock, the same as that described on the previous screen.