Category Archives: Nonsense Lyrics

Songs whose lyrics consist of invented words, or words that make no sense.

John Parry’s Stray Leaves from “A Book of Nonsense”

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Marco Graziosi

This page containing nine limericks (which was kindly provided by Doug Harris) comes from John Parry’s Ridiculous Things Scraps and Oddities: Some with and Many Without Meaning, London: T. McLean, 1854. In the November 20, 1869 issue of Once a … Continue reading →

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Aubrey Beardsley’s Limerick on Illustrating Le Morte Darthur

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Marco Graziosi

This manuscript records memories of Aubrey Beardsley’s mother about amateur theatricals put on at home by the adolescent Aubrey and his sister, Mabel, and her  son’s reluctance to fulfil his commission to illustrate an edition of Le Morte Darthur (1893–1894). … Continue reading →

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The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense Literature

Posted on January 23, 2022 by Marco Graziosi

Barton, Anna, and James Williams, eds. The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. Introduction: Companionable Nonsense – Anna Barton and James Williams Part I: Notes towards a History of English Nonsense 1. Buba, Blictrix, Bufbaf: Medieval Theory … Continue reading →

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New Publications on Edward Lear (and more)

Posted on March 19, 2021 by Marco Graziosi

It’s been a long time since I updated the bibliographies, so here are quite a lot of items. Essays on Edward Lear: Walchester, Kathryn. “Non vedete. È una rivoluzione: Edward Lear Landscape Painter and Italy.” Journal of Tourism Consumption and … Continue reading →

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Calendaria Botanica Ridiculoso

Posted on April 2, 2019 by Marco Graziosi

Among the many merits of Sara Lodge’s Inventing Edward Lear is the identification of Marie Duval as the author of a previously unattributed book, Calendaria Botanica Ridiculoso (first edition 1877). More on Duval. Lodge writes (p. 212): Lear’s ideas gave rise in … Continue reading →

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Eliot’s The Naming of Cats illustrated by Edward Gorey

Posted on February 18, 2019 by Marco Graziosi

T.S. Eliot, The Naming of Cats, illustrated by Edward Gorey. From The American Poetry Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (JULY/AUGUST 1982), p. 9.

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Pussycat Pussycat

Posted on November 10, 2018 by Marco Graziosi

“Pussycat pussycat, where have you been?” “I’ve been up to London to visit the Queen.” “Pussycat pussycat, what did you there?” “I frightened a little mouse under her chair” “MEOWW!” First published in London during 1805 in the book Songs … Continue reading →

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Summer Reading

Posted on August 24, 2018 by Marco Graziosi

The New York Times at last reviews Jenny Uglow’s Lear biography, Mr Lear: David Orr, There Once Was a Man Who Felt Lonely: A Biographer Considers Edward Lear’s Art and Its Sources. A few week ago Peter Byrne, a frequent commentator … Continue reading →

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Four Reviews of Children’s Books (1872)

Posted on November 24, 2017 by Marco Graziosi

Sing-Song: a Nursery-rhyme Book. By Christina G. Rossetti. With 120 Illustrations by Arthur Hughes. Routledge. The Princess and the Goblin. By George Macdonald. Strahan. Through the Looking-glass, and what Alice saw there. By the Author of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. … Continue reading →

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Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Edward Lear

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

It has always irked Paul that posterity regards him as the tuneful, cosy, safe side of the Lennon–McCartney partnership and John as the rebel, experimenter and iconoclast. The casting had been decided in Liverpool, then Hamburg, where he’d always hung … Continue reading →

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