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
ABC: Penned & Illustrated by Edward Lear, Himself (1965)
Another previously unpublished alphabet.
Best In Children’s Books Volume 17 (1959)
A collection of stories, poems and articles, many of which have new illustrations.
Read online at archive.org.
Charles Dickens
Edward Lear
Maud Petersham
Miska Petersham
Et al
Paul Galdone
Robin Jacques
Ezra Jack Keats
Maud Petersham
Miska Petersham
Edward Shenton
Peter Spier
Et al
Best in Children’s Books Volume 3 (1957)
A collection of stories, verses and articles, some of which have new illustrations.
Read online at archive.org.
Marguerite de Angeli
Edward Lear
Paul Galdone
Leonard Weisgard
Best in Children’s Books Volume 38 (1960)
A collection of stories, poems and articles, many of which have new illustrations.
Margaret Wise Brown
Marguerite de Angeli
Eleanor Farjeon
Joel Chandler Harris
Edward Lear
Et al
Paul Galdone
Feodor Rojankovsky
Peter Spier
Et al
A Book of Bosh (1975)
An anthology of lyrics and prose.
A Book of Nonsense (1861)
Enlarged one-volume third edition contains forty-three new limericks, but three have been dropped from the earlier editions. The plates have been engraved on wood and the text is letterpress.
A Book of Nonsense (1866)
This enlarged one-volume seventeenth edition contains forty-three new limericks, but three have been dropped from the earlier editions. The plates have been engraved on wood and the text is letterpress. This edition was hand colored.
A Book of Nonsense (1870)
This is the first quarto edition, with colored illustrations printed by wood blocks. There is a typo on this cover as there are only 113 illustrations. Read for free online at Internet Archive.
A Book of Nonsense (1980)
This is a facsimile of the first edition to be printed in color.
A Book of Nonsense (1982)
A facsimile from the Osborne collection with colored plates.
A Book of Nonsense (1846)
This first edition was published in two volumes. Each includes thirty-six limericks printed on the rectos only. Save for the volume indication, the covers are the same.
A Book of Nonsense (1855)
This second edition was published in one volume. The illustrations were redrawn on the lithographic stones, and the limericks are now lettered in the now-familiar five-line style.
Bosh and Nonsense (1982)
Two hitherto unpublished notebooks of limericks drawn for eleven year old Ada Duncan in 1864-1865.
The Complete Nonsense and Other Verse (2002)
This edition of the verse and nonsense drops the annotations, but was compiled by Lear’s biographer.
The Complete Nonsense Book (1912)
A complete compilation of Lear’s nonsense up to the time of publication. Read for free online at Internet Archive.
The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear (1947)
An omnibus including five books: A Book of Nonsense, Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets, More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc., Laughable Lyrics and Nonsense Songs and Stories.
Edward Lear
The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear (1951)
An omnibus including five books: A Book of Nonsense, Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets, More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, &c., and Laughable Lyrics and Nonsense Songs and Stories.
The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense (2001)
This is a scholarly edition of the verse and nonsense annotated by Lear’s biographer.
A Drawing Book Alphabet (1954)
One of Lear’s previously unpublished comic alphabets.
The Duck and the Kangaroo (1956)
This is a facsimile of an autograph in the Harvard Library Lear collection.