Edward Lear
A melancholy Victorian turned nonsense into an art form, gifting the world playful poems and the enduring limerick.
1812–1888 (age 76)·British artist and writer·Birthday: May 12
Biography
Born in London, Edward Lear was the twentieth of twenty-one children, a start in life that perhaps shaped his outsider's perspective. Plagued by epilepsy and depression, which he called 'the Demon', he found his first professional success not as a writer but as a gifted ornithological illustrator, publishing detailed studies of parrots while still a teenager. Financial necessity later drove him to become a traveling landscape painter, a nomadic existence that took him across Europe and the Mediterranean. It was for the grandchildren of his patron, the Earl of Derby, that he first penned his 'Book of Nonsense' in 1846, a collection of limericks and silly drawings that defied the stern moralism of Victorian children's literature. His masterpiece, 'The Owl and the Pussycat', written for a friend's child, remains a touchstone of whimsical verse. Lear's genius lay in blending the utterly absurd with a profound, gentle melancholy, creating a unique literary universe where the Jumblies go to sea in a sieve and the Dong has a luminous nose.
#1 When Edward Was Born
The biggest hits of 1812
Edward's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1812Born
1817Started school
1825Became a teenager
1828Could drive
1830Could vote
1833Turned 21
1842Turned 30
1852Turned 40
1862Turned 50
President: Abraham Lincoln
1872Turned 60
President: Ulysses S. Grant
1882Turned 70
First electrical power plant opens in New York
President: Chester A. Arthur
1888Died at 76
President: Grover Cleveland
Key Achievements
- Published 'Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots' at age 18, a groundbreaking work of scientific illustration.
- Popularized the limerick form with his 1846 'A Book of Nonsense', though he never used the term himself.
- Authored the timeless nonsense poem 'The Owl and the Pussycat' in 1871.
- Created a vast body of nonsense botany and alphabets, inventing creatures like the Quangle Wangle.
- Produced thousands of detailed landscape paintings from his extensive travels in Italy, Greece, and the Levant.
Did You Know?
He coined the term 'runcible spoon', famously used in 'The Owl and the Pussycat'; its exact meaning remains a playful mystery.
Lear was a talented musician who set many of Tennyson's poems to music, though few compositions survive.
He gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, an appointment arranged by his patron.
His lifelong companion was his Albanian manservant and chef, Giorgio, who features in many of his travel journals.
He invented his own name for his condition, calling his epileptic seizures 'the Terrible Demon'.
“How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him pleasant enough.”
