Edward Lear was born in
Holloway, North
London, on the 12th of May
1812. He was the twentieth of twenty-one children, in a family that had hit
hard times, and was raised and educated by his eldest sister.
Lear suffered from
asthma,
bronchitis,
epilepsy (which he called his "Terrible Demons") and frequent bouts of
depression (which he refered to as "
knownothingatallaboutwhatoneisgoingtodo-ness").
Lear worked as a
natural history artist in his youth, skillfully drawing detailed pictures of animals for
scientific texts. As
iain states above, during this period he developed his earliest
nonesense rhymes. However, his eyesight began to fail in his mid-twenties,
making such detailed work impossible. Adapting his focus to landscape art, Lear began to travel
Europe, painting landscapes and documenting his travels, as well as writing nonesense verse. Returning to Britain, he released illustrated
travel journals and a book of nonsense verse,
both of which were successful. His landscape art was regarded to the extent of
Queen Victoria requesting that he teach her to paint, which he did (he described her as a "
dear and absolute
duck").
Lear's
private life was troubled, and he never married, both for emotional, financial and
health reasons. In his early fourties, he left Britain and lived abroad the rest of his life, travelling and painting, creating more
illustrated journals and books of nonsense. Both his personal letters and his writings (especially the nonsense
verse) suggest he was
running away from something. He died in
1888 in
San Remo, shortly after his companion of seventeen years,
Old Foss the cat, passed away.
Lear did not invent the classic
limerick structure, although he did develop and
popularize the form. Most of his nonsense verse comprised of limericks, although he also wrote longer poetic stories, most famously
The Owl And The Pussycat,
The Quangle Wangle's Hat,
The Jumblies and
The Dong With a Luminous Nose. While his work was intended for
children, it appeals to anyone with a decent sense of the
ludicrious.
No-one describes Lear better than himself, in
The Self-Portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense.
My
personal favourite of Lear's nonsense limericks is an
uncharacteristically
cynical work, The Old Man Of Hong Kong.
There was an Old Man of Hong Kong,
Who never did anything wrong;
He lay on his back, with his head in a sack,
That innocuous Old Man of Hong Kong.
Social commentary through nonesense, a favourite field of mine.