Edward Lear (1812–88) was an English illustrator, humorist, and traveler. He is celebrated as the writer of an original kind of nonsense verse and the popularizer of the limerick.
Born the youngest of 20 children in Highgate, near London, Lear was educated at home, mainly by his sister, Anne. In 1832, he was engaged by the 13th Earl of Derby to make colored drawings of the rare birds and animals in the menagerie at Knowsley Hall (Merseyside.)
Under the Earl’s patronage, he traveled widely in Italy and Greece, making landscape sketches and oil paintings, which he published in several travel books, including Sketches of Rome (1842,) and Illustrated Excursions in Italy (1846.) He became a friend of his patron’s grandchildren and entertained them with nonsense limericks and other verses illustrated with his sketches and first published (anonymously) as A Book of Nonsense in 1846.
Lear’s true genius is apparent in his nonsense poems. Often accompanied by pen-and-ink drawings, they portray a world of fantastic creatures in nonsense words, suggesting a deep underlying melancholy sense. He published Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (1870,) More Nonsense Rhymes (1871,) and Laughable Lyrics (1876.) He spent most of his later years in Italy.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, ‘It is just as I feared! –
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!’
—Edward Lear
When first born we cry for coming into this stage of fools.
—Edward Lear
I was much distressed by next door people who had twin babies and played the violin; but one of the twins died, and the other has eaten the fiddle – so all is peace.
—Edward Lear
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