Nonsense: selected

Edward Lear was born on 12 May 1812 in Holloway, a suburb of North London, into a middle-class family of 21 children. The next to last child, he was raised by his eldest sister, Ann, 21 years his senior, since he was 4 years old, and lived with her until her death in 1862. Besides the hardships of his upbringing, he had to cope with an epileptic condition from an early age and suffered from chronic respiratory problems. Lear did not receive a formal education but, encouraged by his sister, developed his talent for drawing and painting, from which he started earning a living at the age of 16. Soon his work gained recognition and in 1832 he was hired by the London Zoological Society, where he created very fine illustrations of birds and became one of the greatest ornithological artists of all time. With the deterioration of his eyesight he turned to landscape painting, and in 1837 moved to Rome under the patronage of the Earl of Derby. He subsequently
travelled through Italy (1842-47) and visited Greece and Egypt (1848-49), producing a large number of distinctive illustrations. He returns to England in 1849 but after a few years decides to go back to Italy. Lear dies of heart disease in San Remo, in 1888.

Lear is also renowned for his humorous poetry, which he mostly presented in limericks, a poetic form that he helped to popularize. He also became famous for his numerous neologisms: “runcible spoon” is now found in English dictionaries. In 1846 he published A Book of Nonsense. This work was followed by Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871; it included the nonsense song The Owl and the Pussycat, written for the children of his patron, the Earl of Derby), More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (1872), and Laughable Lyrics (1877). A transversal selection of the unique nonsensical humour of Lear is presented in this edition, together with his illustrations.