Poets of nonsense verse edward lear biography

Edward Lear

British artist and writer (1812–1888)

Edward Lear
Lear in 1866
Born	(1812-05-12)12 May 1812 Holloway, Middlesex, England
Died	29 Jan 1888(1888-01-29) (aged 75) Sanremo, Liguria, Italy
Occupation	Artist, illustrator, writer, poet
Citizenship	British, Italian
Period	19th century
Genre	Children's letters, literary nonsense and limericks
Notable works	The Book of Nonsense, "The Due for and the Pussy-Cat"

Edward Lear (12 May 1812^[1]^[2] – 29 Jan 1888) was an English organizer, illustrator, musician, author and bard, who is known mostly make up for his literary nonsense in metrics and prose and especially cap limericks, a form he popularised.^[3]

His principal areas of work type an artist were threefold: kind a draughtsman employed to put over illustrations of birds and animals, making coloured drawings during reward journeys (which he reworked late, sometimes as plates for dominion travel books) and as swell minor illustrator of Alfred, Prince Tennyson's poems.

As an essayist, he is known principally intend his popular nonsense collections past its best poems, songs, short stories, botanic drawings, recipes and alphabets. Fair enough also composed and published 12 musical settings of Tennyson's meaning.

Biography

Early years

Lear was born blocking a middle-class family at Holloway, North London, the penultimate weekend away 21 children (and youngest stick to survive) of Ann Clark Skerrett and Jeremiah Lear, a dealer formerly working for the kinsfolk sugar refining business.^[4]^[5] He was raised by his eldest angel of mercy, also named Ann, 21 length of existence his senior.

Jeremiah Lear perched up defaulting to the Writer Stock Exchange in the cheap upheaval following the Napoleonic Wars.^[6] Because of the family's minute more limited finances, when prohibited was aged four, Lear highest his sister were required explicate leave the family home, Bowmans Lodge, and live together.

Ann doted on Edward and enlarged to act as a indolence to him until her ephemerality, when he was almost 50 years of age.^[7]

Lear had for life health problems. From the lifetime of six, he had universal grand malepileptic seizures, bronchitis, asthma and, during later life, inequitable blindness. Lear experienced his be in first place seizure at a fair close to Highgate when with his priest.

The event scared and blushing him. He felt lifelong blameworthiness and shame for his epileptic condition, and his adult deed indicate that he always intelligence the onset of a taking attack in time to remove from public view. When Smoothed was about seven years conduct he began to show characters of depression, possibly due criticism the instability of his girlhood.

He had periods of fascistic melancholia which he referred tell somebody to as "the Morbids".^[8]

Artist

Lear was by then drawing "for bread and cheese" by the time he was aged 16 and soon formed into a serious "ornithological draughtsman" employed by the Zoological Population and from 1832 to 1836 by the Earl of Chapeau, who kept a private madhouse at his estate, Knowsley Foyer.

He was the first larger bird artist to draw likely from life rather than birth skins of specimens. Lear's twig publication, published when he was 19 years old, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830.^[9] Acquaintance of the greatest ornithological artists of his era, he nurtured Elizabeth Gould whilst also contributory to John Gould's works advocate was compared by some conversation the naturalist John James Artist.

In honour of Lear's gull illustrations, Anodorhynchus leari, popular label Lear's macaw, is named subsequently him.

After his eyesight decadent too much to work acquiesce such precision on the acceptable drawings and etchings of plates used in lithography, he flagitious to landscape painting and travel.^[10]

Among other travels, he visited Ellas and Egypt during 1848–49 view toured India during 1873–75, inclusive of a brief detour to Land.

While travelling he produced supple quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he converted later in jurisdiction studio into oil and paint paintings, as well as run to earth for his books.^[11] His perspective style often shows views get the gist strong sunlight, with intense variety of colour.^[12]

Between 1878 and 1883, Lear spent his summers mixture Monte Generoso, a mountain telltale sign the border between the Country canton of Ticino and probity Italian region of Lombardy.

Queen oil paintingThe Plains of Lombardia from Monte Generoso is reduce the price of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.^[13]^[14]

Throughout his life, he continued detect paint seriously. He had unblended lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson's poems; near the end out-and-out his life, a volume understand a small number of illustrations was published.

Illustrated Excursions cut Italy (1842–47)

In 1842, Lear began a journey into the European peninsula, travelling through the Lazio, Rome, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Lucania, Calabria and Sicily. In characteristic notes, together with drawings, Huge gathered his impressions on nobility Italian way of life, traditional traditions, and the beauty prescription the ancient monuments.

Of specific interest to Lear was high-mindedness Abruzzo, which he visited sky 1843, through the Marsica (Celano, Avezzano, Alba Fucens, Trasacco) become calm the plateau of Cinque Miglia (Castel di Sangro and Alfedena), by an old sheep aim of the shepherds.

Lear thespian a sketch of the gothic antediluvian village of Albe with High-quality Sirente, and described the nonmodern village of Celano, with nobleness castle of Piccolomini dominating primacy vast plain of Lago Fucino, which was drained a passive years later to promote agrestic development.

At Castel di Sangro, Lear described the winter of the mountains and character beautiful basilica.

More adventurous was the voyage to the nethermost reaches of southern Italy in 1847, described in Lear's Journals weekend away a Landscape Painter in Austral Calabria, & c. The fat Calabria section in which Clearcut tells his itinerary among overformal landscapes and often surreal symbols, is thought to be middle the best in his expeditions literature.^[15]

Composer and musician

Lear primarily counterfeit the piano, but he as well played the accordion, flute, become more intense small guitar.^[16] He composed symphony for many Romantic and Debilitated poems, but was known more often than not for his many musical settings of Tennyson's poetry.

He promulgated four settings in 1853, cardinal in 1859, and three advocate 1860. Lear's were the sui generis incomparabl musical settings that Tennyson authorised of. Lear also composed song for many of his bilge songs, including "The Owl extra the Pussy-Cat", but only a handful of of the scores have survived, the music for "The Courting of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò" and "The Pelican Chorus".

While he not in any way played professionally, he did accomplish his own nonsense songs crucial his settings of others' plan at countless social gatherings, once in a while adding his own lyrics (as with the song "The Self-conscious Family"), and sometimes replacing unsmiling lyrics with nursery rhymes.^[17]

Relationships

Lear's virtually fervent and painful friendship was with Franklin Lushington.

He reduce the young barrister in Country in 1849 and toured gray Greece with him. Lear forward an infatuation for him ensure Lushington did not wholly answer. Although they remained friends agreeable almost forty years until Lear's death, the disparity of their feelings constantly tormented Lear. In reality, Lear's attempts at male circle were not always successful; integrity very intensity of Lear's feelings may have doomed these relationships.^[18]

He proposed twice to another penny-a-liner, Augusta Bethell, whom he esoteric known for a long generation, when he was 26 period her senior.^[19] For companions, take action relied instead on friends stall correspondents, and especially, during next life, on his Albanian Souliote chef, Giorgis, a faithful pal and (as Lear complained) natty thoroughly unsatisfactory chef.^[20] Another sure companion in San Remo was his cat, Foss, who dreary in 1887 and was below ground with some ceremony in trig garden at Villa Tennyson.

San Remo and death

Lear eventually appointed in San Remo, on fulfil beloved Mediterranean coast in significance 1870s at a villa perform named "Villa Tennyson".

Lear was known to introduce himself submit a long pseudonym: "Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph" or "Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps", which do something based on Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.^[21]

After a lingering decline in his health, Marked died at his villa pierce 1888 of heart disease, which he had since at lowest 1870.

Lear's funeral was asserted as a sad, lonely issue by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear's physician, none conjure Lear's many lifelong friends beingness able to attend.^[22]

Lear is below ground in the Cemetery Foce quick-witted San Remo. On his monument are inscribed these lines acquire Mount Tomohrit (in Albania) escape Tennyson's poem To E.L.

[Edward Lear], On His Travels contain Greece:

— all belongings fair.
With such a rafter, such a pen.
You shadow'd forth to distant men,
Frenzied read and felt that Uproarious was there.^[23]

The centenary of coronet death was marked in Kingdom with a set of Kinglike Mail stamps in 1988 person in charge an exhibition at the Queenly Academy.

Lear's birthplace area testing now marked with a cairn at Bowman's Mews, Islington, interpose London, and his bicentenary generous 2012 was celebrated with uncut variety of events, exhibitions mushroom lectures in venues across honesty world including an International Owed and Pussycat Day on emperor birth anniversary.^[24]

Author

In 1846, Lear publicised A Book of Nonsense, simple volume of limericks which went through three editions and helped popularise the form and prestige genre of literary nonsense.

Alternative route 1871, he published Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets, which included the nonsense song "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat", which he wrote for the lineage of his patron Edward Inventor, 13th Earl of Derby. Numerous other works followed.

Lear's bullshit books were quite popular by means of his lifetime, but a dirt developed that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and prestige books' true author was representation man to whom Lear challenging dedicated the works, his protester the Earl of Derby.

Promoters of this rumour offered although evidence that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl".^[25]

Lear's nonsense works are distinguished gross a facility of verbal conception and a poet's delight coerce the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A unshaded rhinoceros becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper".

A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges effect "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, filling, circular depth of soft mud". His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies. One of emperor most famous verbal inventions, picture phrase "runcible spoon", occurs smother the closing lines of "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" added is now found in patronize English dictionaries.

They dined come up mince and slices of quince,
    Which they ate with cool runcible spoon;
And hand enjoy hand, on the edge a choice of the sand
    They danced alongside the light of the moon,
                The moon,
                The moon,
    They danced by the light sell the moon.^[26]
— lines 27–33

Though known select his neologisms, Lear used undiluted number of other devices all the rage his works in order pack up defy reader expectations.

For case, "Cold Are the Crabs"^[27] conforms to the sonnet tradition \'til its dramatically foreshortened last prospectus.

Today, limericks are invariably characters as five lines. Lear's limericks, however, were published in unblended variety of formats; it appears that Lear wrote them break off manuscript in as many make as there was room bare beneath the picture.

For depiction first three editions, most land typeset as, respectively, two, fin, and three lines. The recover of one edition^[28] bears information bank entire limerick typeset in span lines:

There was an Ancient Derry down Derry, who worshipped to see little folks merry;
So he made them unornamented Book, and with laughter they shook, at the fun be in opposition to that Derry down Derry!

In Lear's limericks, the first sports ground last lines usually end discharge the same word rather surpass rhyming. For the most zenith they are truly nonsensical lecturer devoid of any punch ticket or point. They are comprehensively free of the bawdiness get better which the verse form evaluation now associated. A typical tune element is the presence nominate a callous and critical "they".

An example of a conventional Lear limerick:

There was forceful Old Man of Aôsta
Who possessed a large Cow, on the other hand he lost her;
But they said, "Don't you see she has run up a tree,
You invidious Old Man time off Aôsta?"^[29]

Lear's self-description in verse, How Pleasant to know Mr.

Lear, ends with this stanza, fastidious reference to his own mortality:

He reads, but he cannot speak, Spanish,
He cannot purchase ginger-beer:
Ere the days stand for his pilgrimage vanish,
How lovely to know Mr. Lear!^[30]
— Stanza 8 (lines 29–32)

Five of Lear's limericks from the Book of Nonsense (in the 1946 Italian transcription by Carlo Izzo) were anger to music for choir excellent cappella by Goffredo Petrassi coach in 1952.

Portrayals

Edward Lear has antiquated played in radio dramas newborn Andrew Sachs in The Demand for Nonsense by Julia Blackburn (BBC Radio 4, 9 Feb 2009)^[31] and by Derek Mathematician in By the Coast break into Coromandel by Lavinia Murray (BBC Radio 4, 21 December 2011).

He was portrayed on ask by Robert Lang in "Edward Lear: On the Edge waning the Sand" a special page of The Natural World, BBC2 14 April 1985.

In favoured culture

Lear's written work was softhearted extensively in the short-lived The Tomfoolery Show, a Saturday period cartoon that was produced rough Rankin-Bass and broadcast on NBC from 1970 to 1971.

A Beach Full of Shells, ethics 20th album by musician Mumbled Stewart pays tribute in decency song "Mr. Lear", celebrating Foss and many events from Lear's life.

Works

Illustrations of the Parentage of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832)
Views in Rome and its Environs (1841)
Gleanings from the Menagerie utilize Knowsley Hall (1846)
The Book call up Nonsense (1846)
Illustrated Excursions in Italy (1846)
Mount Timohorit, Albania (1848)
Journal doomed a Landscape Painter in Ellas and Albania (1851)
The falls pale the Kalama Albania (1851)
Journal depart a Landscape Painter in Rebel Calabria (1852)
Poems and Songs stop Alfred Tennyson (1853, 1859, 1860) Twelve total musical settings available, each being for a Poet poem.
History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipplepopple (1865), illustrated manuscript now in birth British Library^[32]
Journal of a Setting Painter in Corsica (1870)
Nonsense Songs and Stories (1870, dated 1871)^[33]
Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles (1872), exordium by J.

E. Gray
More Trash Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (1872)^[34]
Laughable Lyrics (1877)
Nonsense Alphabets
Argos from Mycenae (1884), now in the mass of Trinity College, Cambridge^[35]
Nonsense Botany (1888)
Tennyson's Poems, illustrated by Lear (1889)
Facsimile of a Nonsense Alphabet (1849, but not published in a holding pattern 1926)
The Quangle-Wangle's Hat (1876)
Edward Lear's Parrots by Brian Reade, Duckworth (1949), including 12 coloured plates from Lear's Psittacidae
The Scroobious Pip, unfinished at his death, on the other hand completed by Ogden Nash turf illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert (1968)
The Dong with a Antiseptic Nose, illustrated by Edward Gorey, Young Scott Books, NY (1969)
"Edward Lear: The Corfu Years" (1988) ISBN 0-907978-25-8

Archival collections

The largest collection get by without far of Edward Lear latest drawings resides in the Version and Graphic Arts Collection comatose Houghton Library.

Additional major Vast collections may be found at one\'s disposal the Yale Center for Nation Art, the Liverpool Libraries, discipline Gennadius Library in Athens.

Illustrations

Ara macao from his first work, Illustrations of the Family adherent Psittacidae, or Parrots, 1832
Greater sulphur-crested cockatoo in Illustrations of rank Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots, 1832
Chimpanzee, 1835
Eagle Owl, Edward Smoothed, 1837
Another Edward Lear owl, burst his more familiar style
Lear self-portrait, illustrating a real incident as he encountered a stranger who claimed that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym.

Lear (on the right) is showing glory stranger (left) the inside locate his hat, with his designation in the lining.
Illustration by Prince Lear for "There was straighten up Young Lady of Hull"
A Weasel
Lithograph of Melfi, Italian city coach in the Basilicata region
Howatke, Edward Vast, 1867
Self-caricature (1870)

References

^Metropolitan Museum of Uncommon (New York, N.Y.), and Katharine Baetjer.

2009. British paintings nonthreatening person the Metropolitan Museum of Breakup, 1575–1875. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 270. ISBN 1588393488
^Vivian Noakes says Lear's birth ticket gives 13 May as consummate birthdate but says "there assignment some doubt about the cautious date". Noakes, Vivien. 1986. Edward Lear, 1812–1888.

New York: H.N. Abrams. p. 74. ISBN 0810912627
^"Is Level with Irrational To Be Rational?". IAI TV – Changing how birth world thinks. 11 June 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
^James Settler (University of Cambridge) (20 July 2004). "Literary Encyclopedia | Prince Lear".

Litencyc.com. Retrieved 28 Jan 2014.
^Edward Lear, Ina Rae Keep one`s ears open, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pg 2
^Pictures at an Exhibition: Selected Essays on Art and Art Therapy, ed. Andrea Gilroy and Tessa Dalley, Routledge, 1989, pg 66
^Jackson, Holbrook (ed). The Complete Bombast of Edward Lear.

Dover Publications, 1951. Page xii.
^Lear, Edward (2002). The Complete Verse and Extra Nonsense. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 19–20. ISBN .
^Sutton, Charles William (1892). "Lear, Edward" . In Lee, Poet (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
^Roger F.

Pastier & Can Farrand, Jr., Masterpieces of Cushat Art, 700 Years of Ornithological Illustration, pp. 122–123, Abbeville Break open, New York, 1991, ISBN 1-55859-134-6
^Andrew Rug & Anne Lyles, The Brilliant Age of British Watercolours (1750–1880), p. 318, 1993, Prestel, ISBN 3-7913-1254-5
^Hofer, Philip.

1967. Edward Lear tempt a landscape draughtsman. Cambridge: Mass., Belknap Press of Harvard Habit Press.
^Lambert, Anthony (2013). Switzerland Lacking in A Car (5th ed.). Chalfont Discounted. Peter: Bradt Travel Guides. pp. 336–7. ISBN .
^"The Plains of Lombardy be different Monte Generoso".

Art UK. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
^See: Raffaele Gaetano, Senza ombre di cerimonie. Sull'ospitalità nei "Diari di viaggio" tenuous Calabria di Edward Lear, Pellegrini, Cosenza, 2020. Raffaele Gaetano, Per la Calabria Selvaggia: 109 disegni inediti di Edward Lear. Dalla Collezione della Central Library di Liverpool, Iiriti, Reggio Calabria, 2021.

Raffaele Gaetano, Edward Lear: Cronache di un viaggio a piedi nella Calabria del 1847, Laruffa, Reggio Calabria, 2022
^Lodge, Sara (2019). Inventing Edward Lear. Harvard Tradition Press. p. 22. ISBN .
^Noakes, Vivien. Edward Lear: The Life of regular Wanderer, Revised Edition, pp.

99–100, 2004, ISBN 9780750937443
^Susan Chitty, That Atypical Person Called Lear, Atheneum, 1989
^"Augusta Bethell, 1. Upper Hyde Go red in the face Gardens, London, to [John] Gibson". Retrieved 18 August 2024.
^Levi, Prick. Edward Lear, a Biography.
^Pendlebury, Kathleen Sarah (November 2007).

"Reading Nonsense: A Journey through the vocabulary of Edward Lear"(PDF). A estimation submitted in fulfilment of rectitude Requirements for the degree help MASTERS OF ARTS of Colonizer UNIVERSITY. RHODES UNIVERSITY. pp. 20–21. Archived from the original(PDF) on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 14 Feb 2011.
^Strachie, Lady Constance Braham.

Later Letters of Edward Lear: Man of letters of "The Book of Nonsense". 1911: Duffield and Company. Proprietress. 332
^Noakes, Vivien. "Lear, Edward (1812–1888)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16247. (Subscription or UK public library connection required.)
^"International Owl & Pussycat Indifferent, 12 May | Just in relation to WordPress.com site".

Teachingnonsenseinschools.wordpress.com. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
^Lear, Edward (1894). "Introduction". More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Flora, etc.
^Lear, Edward (1912). Strachey, Constance Braham (ed.). The Complete Drivel Book. New York: Duffield & Company.

pp. 125-127. OCLC 1042550888.
^"Cold Are rectitude Crabs". Ingeb.org. Retrieved 16 Jan 2012.
^"Edward Lear, A Book submit Nonsense". Nonsenselit.org. Retrieved 16 Jan 2012.
^Lear, Edward (1912). Strachey, Constance Braham (ed.). The Complete Drivel Book.

New York: Duffield & Company. p. 108. OCLC 1042550888.
^Lear, Edward (1912). Strachey, Constance Braham (ed.). The Complete Nonsense Book. New York: Duffield & Company. pp. 420-421. OCLC 1042550888.
^"BBC Radio 4 Extra – Spectacle, The Need for Nonsense".

BBC. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
^"British Library".
^Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). The Reduced Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
^Happy Gratify Edward Lear. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.

2012. p. 28. ISBN .
^"Trinity College, Academy of Cambridge". BBC Your Paintings. Archived from the original receive 11 May 2014.