Edward Lear
(1812 - 1888)
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author and poet. He is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form he popularised.
His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold:
- As a draughtsman employed to illustrate birds and animals;
- Making colored drawings during his journeys, which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books; and
- As a (minor) illustrator of Alfred Tennyson’s poems.
As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense works, which use real and invented English words.
Bibliography
Tortoises, Terrapins and Turtles Drawn from Life (1872)
While most of the drawings in this work were by James de Carle Sowerby, Edward Lear did the actual lithography. Read for free online at Internet Archive.
James de Carle Sowerby
The Tragical Life and Death of Caius Marius, Esq., Late Her Majesty’s Consul-General in the Roman States (1983)
A series of comic sketches relating the life of a rags to riches Roman consul. This was issued in an edition of only one hundred copies. Read for free online at Nonsense Lit.
Ye Long Nite in Ye Wonderfull Bedde (1972)
A series of captioned drawings from around 1853 from the Fitzwilliam.