Interest in Edward Lear must be on the rise, at least among writers: he has been making appearances in a number of novels, short stories and even as the central character in Clive Barker’s play Subtle Bodies (in Forms of Heaven: Three Plays by Clive Barker. London: HarperCollins, 1997).

A few stories have been made available online, the classic Donald Barthelme’s “The Death of Edward Lear,” from Overnight to Many Distant Cities (New York: Penguin, 1983), as well as two recent web originals: “Lear on Limbo: Journal of a Landscape Painter on the Island of Limbo” by Dennis List, and “The Old Man of Corfu” by Peter Byrne (at swans.com).

If the fictional Lear does not satisfy you, you can follow the adventures of a British family following in his (and Michael Montgomery‘s) footsteps across Sicily in last Saturday’s Telegraph Magazine: To Gromboolia and Back.