A landscape in Corfu with two figures sitting on a hillside.
Numbered, inscribed in Greek and dated ’10. May. 1862 (76)’ (lower right) and further inscribed in Greek and with colour notes. Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with bodycolour. 14 x 20¾ in. (35.5 x 52.2 cm.).
I hope I’ll be able to post Edward Lear’s second letter to A.M. Ricci tomorrow. For the moment, enjoy this watercolour I did not have when posting Lear’s diary entry for 20 April 1863.
A view of Santa Maura, Akarnia.
Numbered, inscribed and dated ‘Akarnia/Santa Maura/20 April.1863/9.A.M./(59). (lower right) and further inscribed with colour notes. Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with bodycolour. 13¾ x 19¼ in. (34.9 x 48.8 cm.)
Edward Lear wrote at least two letters to Angelo Maria Ricci, discussing a project of his I had never read about. They are both at Biblioteca comunale di Rieti, Fondo Ricci, F=1=16/212 (many thanks to Ms Carla Moroni for supplying scans of the originals and granting permission to post them here).
Angelo Maria Ricci (Mopolino di Capitignano, L’Aquila 1776 ― Rieti 1850) studied in Rome and became a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia. He then moved to Naples, where he was given the chair of Rhetorics at the local university. In 1818, his health failing, he retired to Rieti, where he died in 1850. He wrote two epic poems, Italiade (1819) and San Benedetto (1824), and a treatise Della vulgare eloquenza (1819), as well as a Manzoni-inspired novel, Gli sposi fedeli (1837). He also produced six volumes of Poesie varie (1828-1830) and one of Poesie sacre (1849). [Also see a short Italian Wikipedia entry. A full biography is available via Google Books, where you can also read several of his books.]
In 1844-45, Edward Lear was evidently planning to illustrate the seventh book of Virgil’s Aeneid, and had asked Ricci, a Virgil expert, to help him select places worth drawing and to provide letters of introduction. Lear never realized the illustrations and probably abandoned the plan in the early stages owing to an eye infection, as he explains in the letter:
Al Illustriss.mo e Dottiss.mo Signore
il Sig.re Cavaliere A.M. Ricci.
in Rieti
1072d. Via Felice
Roma ― Dec.bre 18. 1844.
Sig.re Cavaliere illustrissimo ed amabilissimo,
Già avra pensato che il mio non rispondere alla sua pregiata lettera del 15 Nov.bre ˇ[non] sarà stato senza qualche cagione di premura: ― essendosi ella cosi amichevolmente ricordata del mio pensiero (da illustrare il 7mo libro di Virgilio,) mi sarebbe stato anche un piacere che un dovere ˇ[di] mandarle subito i miei ringraziamenti per tanta bontâ!
Ma ― tutto ciò che si vuole in questo mondo non si può fare: e mi rincresce, che, avendo per piû di 6 settimane sofferto moltissimo di una debolezza di vista, ― o piuttosto di quasi=infiammazione degl’occhi ― mi e stato assolutamente vietato il scrivere ― il leg[g]ere, ed il disegno. Bella vita! ―
Meno male che mi restava la musica! ― e poi ― se fosse ciò tolta ― vi è sempre il pensare. ――
Ora ― mi trovo a poco a poco amegliorandosi gli occhi, ― ma non posso molto travagliare: ― prendo, intanto, quest’occasione di ringraziare tanto e tanto la sua amabilità, preso che abbia tante pene per la parte mia.
Sono disgustato che non posso scrivere quel che la sua lettera domanda: si sa che sempre mi mancavano le parole ― maggiormente senza gli occhi come si può far altra che spedirle una propria bestialità?
Così sarà veramente questa lettera ― ma ella avrà la compiacenza di perdonarmi fin che mi ritorna il potere di più rispondere. Anche temo che il carattere sarà troppo cattivo per l’indovinare suo.
Fra tutti gli siti numerati in sua epistola ― certi sarebbero difficili ad ottenere. Monte Circeo ― Albunea ― Laurentum, Ardea, Nemi, etc. ― sono tutti poco lontano ― ma, cosa diremo di Atina, Mutasca ― e Norcia?
Per ora perdo la speranza di visitare quei luoghi: ― ma credo che abbia già disegnato tutti gli altri. intanto ripeto che la lettera mi sarebbe stato di grandissimo valore ― anche se fosse stato scritto da chichessia: essendo la sua ― si può figurarsi come l’ho pregiato.
Vorrei assai sapere se ella si troverà in Roma quest’inverno, e la prego di avere la bonta di avvertirmi del suo arrivo ― che posso passar a salutarla.
E, finora ― non vedo, (ne sento notizie di) ― Don Celestino [Ricci, fratello del poeta] ― che giornalmente aspetto. Al suo venire ― se sento da lui che ella non verrâ ― allora scrivero di nuovo a Rieti, più non mi permettendo gli occhi adesso.
Mi creda,
illustrissimo sig.r Cavaliere,
sempre suo servo obbligatissimo
Odoardo Lear.
My translation:
1072d. Via Felice
Roma ― December 18. 1844
Signore Cavaliere illustrissimo ed amabilissimo,
You will have come to the conclusion that my lack of a reply to your kind letter of 15 November was due to some pressing reason: ― as you were so friendly as to remember my project (to illustrate the 7th book of Virgil) it would have been a pleasure as well as a duty to send my thanks for such kindness immediately!
However ― one cannot do all he wants in this world: and I am sorry to say that, as I have suffered from a weakness of my eyesight ― or rather my eyes were nearly inflamed ― I have been utterly forbidden to write ― read, and draw. What a life!
Music was left, at least! And then ― if even that were taken away ― the ability to think would be left.
My eyes are now slowly improving, ― but I cannot work much: ― for the moment, I take this opportunity to thank you for your great friendliness, for the inconvenience you have suffered for my sake.
I am disgusted of being unable to answer what you asked in your letter: you know that my language has always been insufficient. Without my eyes, what else can I do but send a beastly reply?
Such will be this letter ― but you will be so kind to pardon me until I am able to send a more detailed reply. I also fear that my handwriting will be much too bad for your guessing.
Of all the places listed in your letter ― some would be difficult to obtain. Monte Circeo ― Albunea ― Laurentum, Ardea, Nemi etc. ― are all not very far from here ― but, what about Altina, Mutasca ― and Norcia?
I have no hope of visiting these places at the moment: ― but I think I have already drawn all the others. At present let me repeat how valuable any letter would have been to me ― whoever had written it: as it was from you ― you may easily guess how much I appreciated it.
I would be very happy to know whether you will be in Rome this winter, and would be pleased if you could kindly let me know of your arrival ― so that I can come and visit you.
So far, I have not seen, (nor do I have any news from) ― Don Celestino [Ricci, the poet’s brother] ― whom I expect to see any day now. When he arrives ― if I hear from him that you are not coming ― I shall write to you in Rieti again, as my eyes will not let me do more at present.
I remain,
illustrious signor Cavaliere,
your most obliging servant
Edward Lear.
Ode to Nonsense, the first opera devoted to Edward Lear’s life, will premiere at Her Majesty’s Theatre on 26 April, and will be on until 4 May.
You should watch the Making-of videos on Vimeo (Episode 1, Episode 2), as well as read the following articles, that provide a lot of interesting information:
Antoine Sausverd over at Töpfferiana has unearthed some contributions by Alfred Zantzinger Baker to the French children’s magazine La jeunesse illustré, 1906-1907 (Gallica).
I have now created a set of pages which, besides providing information on Baker and his toy books, allow you to have fun rotating the images to read the stories (Javascript provided by my son Riccardo).
From The World Encyclopedia of Cartooning:
Baker, Alfred Zantzinger (1870-1933) [was] an American cartoonist born in Baltimore, Maryland. Baker pursued seriously art and was exhibited at age 23 in the National Academy he joined the staff of Puck in 1898. As a cartoonist he did not confine his work to one outlet, and at the turn of the century Baker was appearing frequently in the pages of Puck, Judge, Life, Scribner’s, Harper’s, Century and St. Nicholas. His books include The Moving Picture Book (1911), The Moving Picture Glue Book (1912) and The Torn Book (1913). His innovations, such as die-cutting and 3-D drawings with glasses, are surpassed in the children’s book genre only by those of the imaginative Peter Newell. Baker’s work was among the freshest and cleverest of American cartooning at the turn of the century, and retains these characteristic even under modern scrutiny.
Baker’s career was strictly connected to Peter Newell’s, with whose daughter he eloped, then married, and finally divorced. As the image above clearly shows, he was also strongly influenced by Gustave Verbeek.
In the spring of 1863, just before the Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece, Edward Lear started a tour of the seven islands which would result in a book of lithographs, Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, published in December of that year.
You can now follow his day-to-day progress across the archipelago at the Edward Lear’s Diaries blog. I have been looking for Lear’s sketches online and will add them whenever I can. For more on the Ionian Islands, see DT Ansted’s The Ionian Islands in the Year 1863. Ansted also appears in Lear’s journal (24.ii, 26.ii, 1.iii, and 7.iii 1863) and thanks him for his help while visiting Corfu.
Also, I don’t remember mentioning this article from the TLS blog before: Edward Lear in Corfu, by Adrian Tahourdin.
I have recently posted two of Lear’s previously-unpublished picture stories (and more are to follow); if you are interested in the subject, Anna Henchman’s recent talk at INCS 2013, “Fragments out of Place: Body Parts and the Logic of Nonsense in Edward Lear,” discusses at some length one of the earliest-published picture stories: The Adventures of Mr Lear, the Polly and the Pusseybite. She has kindly sent me an abstract:
Like waste, nonsense is matter out of place. Rearranged body parts, dismemberment, beheading, and other forms of bodily distortion appear throughout Edward Lear’s nonsense verse. “Elastic” bodies are squeezed, broken, dissolved, smashed, and rolled up tight. Heads are giant, small, square, or “fanned off.” In “The Adventures of Mr Lear, the Polly and the Pusseybite,” three bodies are “dashed to atoms” only to be refastened: Lear’s head is stuck to the parrot’s body, the parrot’s head to a cat body and human legs, and the cat head perches on Lear’s armless frame. The rearrangement retains what Richard Owen defined as a “homologous” relationship in 1843: arms go where wings used to; heads replace heads. Lear’s acute awareness of relations–between parts and wholes, claw and hand, individual and species–grows out of his work illustrating animals and plants for Charles Darwin and others.
This chapter places Lear’s manipulation of bodies and words in the context of two Victorian preoccupations: comparative anatomy and the evolution of both species and language. It links Lear’s play with body parts to his rearrangement of parts in language: placing familiar morphemes such as “om-,” “-ferous,” and “-ible” adjacent to out-of-place roots. Bodies and words share several characteristics: they are products of evolution, can be broken into parts (organs, limbs, or morphemes), and function as individual units that are inseparable from the larger systems of which they are a part.
Lear’s bodily distortions make freshly visible the logic of ordinary bodies, a logic that distributes a set number of limbs to a particular species. He distorts bodies and words to destabilize everyday ideas about individuality and wholeness: that individuals are intact, autonomous, distinct from others, and easily categorized, and even that one can easily distinguish between wholes and parts.
The following is another picture story available from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where you will find higher resolution scans.
It is the incomplete (or unfinished) companion to Edward Lear’s other Roman history: The Tragical Life and Death of Caius Marius Esqre late her Majesty’s Consul-general in the Roman states: illustrated from authentic sauces, consisting of 23 pictures which Lear drew for the family of Edward Penrhyn at East Sheen on 30 October 1841 (published in a limited edition by Justin G. Schiller in 1983; the MS is now at Cotsen Children’s Libary, Princeton University).
Romulus and Remus was presumably made in the same context and, the paper bearing a partial watermark (“[18]41”), at the same time. It is a parody of the traditional story of the founding of Rome according to Livy (The History of Rome Book I, 1.3 and 1.4) and anticipates such comic histories as Gilbert Abbot à Beckett’s Comic History of England and Comic History of Rome (both illustrated by John Leech).
1. Mr. Amulius seizes his majesty Numitor’s crown.
2. Mr. Amulius exposes his nephews, Master Romulus & Master Remus on the Tiber, quite unconscious of their danger.
3. Master Romulus & Master Remus is suckled by a great wolf.
4. Master Remus & Master Romulus grow up and become shepherds.
I have updated the Manuscripts page with information on the Edward Lear material available at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library. Among the many items which are also part of the Beinecke Digital Collections are at least three picture stories.
Here is a previously-unpublished one in which Lear loses and then recovers his hat; it was drawn and sent to Lady Susan Percy on 28 February 1842, with a note mentioning the “frightful facts which occurred 3 or 4 hours ago” (M. Montgomery, The Owl and the Pussy Cats: Lear in Love, the Untold Story, 2012, p. 44).
1. Mr. L. sets out for a walk –but is amazed at the high wind.
2. Mr. L. loses his hat & contemplates the flight thereof from a serene staircase.
3. Mr. L. avails himself of his umbrella to fly agter his lively hat.
4. Mr. L. is joined in the chase of his lively hat by some familiar & affectionate jackdaws.
5. Mr. L. rests on the branch of a tree & converses with one of the familiar & affectionate jackdaws.
6. Mr. L. descends to the earth & recovers his lively hat by means of 2 ingenious infants.
7. Mr. L. is shocked to find a hole in his lively hat.
8. Mr. L. returns home in a supurflous & unsatisfying manner.
Higher-resolution images are available from Beinecke’s Digital Collections, and you can even download a pdf file of the whole story.
Near Cervia, 7 May 1867. Houghton Library MS Typ 55.26 NI.L10
Houghton Library is proceeding with the digitization of their Edward Lear manuscript holdings, and a few days ago a new resource was made available: Edward Lear Landscape Drawings, 1838-1884.
Near Jabalpur: Falls of the Narmada, 28 November 1873. Houghton Library MS Typ 55.26 NII.R1.
The document contains over 3,500 links to good-resolution scans of Lear’s drawings arranged in chronological order, an invaluable resource. Read Houghton Library Blog’s announcement.
When I heard about this, I suddenly realised that I had not annouced several other resources that the library had been placing online, in particular Edward Lear miscellaneous drawings, 1849-1866 (MS Typ 55.14) which includes a wealth of drafts and proofs of the nonsense.
Edward Lear self-caricature and signature. Houghton Library MS Typ 55.14.
I have therefore decided to publish a document I have been preparing for some time. It contains a list of some of the Lear manuscripts in public collections I know of. This is clearly far from complete, and at the moment only includes the Houghton material, and not even all of it, but I’ll keep updating the list in the coming weeks.
Detail from a sketch of Athens dated 5, 6 & 7 June 1848. Private collection.
The journals Edward Lear kept before 1858 are lost. Though we know that in 1885 he still had “60 volumes of Diaries” (letter to Fortescue, 30 April 1885, Selected Letters, p. 269), these were destroyed or distributed among Lear’s friends by his executor, Franklin Lushington. He probably gave the 1848 journal to Charles M. Church, who had travelled in Greece with Lear in that year, and between 1907 and 1915 Church prepared a memoir of his experiences of the journey:
“WITH EDWARD LEAR IN GREECE: Being recollections of travel in Hellenic lands two generations ago, with extracts from his Journals and Letters, and illustrated by his sketches”.
Church, as the title suggests, had probably also been given the sketches Lear made at the time. Unfortunately the book was never published, and only a (later) typescript remains in the Westminster School Archive, London. The drawings have also been dispersed.
Now Rowena Fowler has edited part of the text, including all the Lear entries that Church reproduced, and identified several of the drawings. The result is published on a dedicated website maintained by the Wesmister School which provides a fitting conclusion to the bicentennial celebrations of last year and an important addition to my transcription project.
A Blog of Bosh 