Shed a Tear for Edward Lear

Edward Lear was a British Author and Poet I have recently re-discovered (You might know the poem "The Owl and the Pussycat"). I love his books of nonsense. They are wonderfully illustrated and are full of limericks, A form of poetry I am particularly fond of. In fact the limericks in Lear's nonsense books are given credit for popularizing the form. Lear was also an accomplished illustrator who's work was compared favorably with Audubon.

Here are some of his limericks and accompanying illustrations:

There was an Old Man of Coblenz,
The length of whose legs was immense;
He went with one prance from Turkey to France,
That surprising Old Man of Coblenz.

There was an Old Man on whose nose
Most birds of the air could repose;
But they all flew away at the closing of day,
Which relieved that Old Man and his nose.

There was an Old Person of Dutton,
Whose head was as small as a button;
So to make it look big he purchased a wig,
And rapidly rushed about Dutton.

All of the above examples are from project Gutenberg's collection of Lear's works. Here is a link to the book containing all the above limericks and illustrations.


I have written a quick limerick to commemorate this zany, zany giant of a limericker. Ahem.

Edward Lear was a man with a craze.
He would write only lim'ricks for days.
Then he'd drink himself silly
In a suit that was frilly.
And stumble back home in a haze.