Category Archives: Nonsense Lyrics

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

Matchbox-Styled Book: The Limericks

Posted on December 24, 2023 by Marco Graziosi

A few weeks ago, kind Dough Harris sent me an extract from a book he recently acquired. Here is how he describes it: An interesting matchbox-styled booklet dropped through my letterbox today. Supposedly part of the ‘Safety [or Safest – … Continue reading →

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A Touching Appeal: A Parody of “The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò”

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Marco Graziosi

Punch, Vol. 107 (17 November 1894), pp. 234-235. From Amy Matthewson’s Cartooning China: Punch, Power, & Politics in the Victorian Era. London and new York: Routledge, 2022, pp. 114-116. John Tenniel’s “A Touching Appeal” depicts an overgrown childlike Chinese man named Younghy-Bung-Boo-Hoo … Continue reading →

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A Hierarchy of Nonsense, By John Kropf

Posted on May 8, 2023 by Marco Graziosi

[I receive from John Kropf, and publish.] For a couple of semesters in college I worked at the on-campus student coffee house, The Bandersnatch, named after the creature in Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsensical poem, Jabberwocky. When you work inside a … Continue reading →

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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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