Tag Archives: Limerick

After Edward Lear

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

Group of three drawings with limericks, c1880. All in pen and ink, annotated either “5”, “10” or “11” in pencil in upper right corner, 18.7 x 26.7cm (paper). Stains, foxing and soiling overall, tears to edges, portions of paper corroded … Continue reading →

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The Wisdom of Nonsense

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

WELL-TIMED nonsense is the divinest sense. In the current number of the Cornhill Magazine Canon Selwyn publishes some of the later letters of Edward Lear, and suggests that as the realm of sense is infinite, and as the realm of nonsense … Continue reading →

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A Few Links

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

I have been checking and fixing a few links in the bibliography pages and added a new, interesting article to the Studies on Edward Lear page: Antinucci, Raffaella. “‘Sensational Nonsense.’ Edward Lear and the (Im)purity of Nonsense Writing.” English Literature … Continue reading →

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The Archbishop of Dublin (NOT a Lear Limerick)

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

There was an Archbishop of Dublin Whom corns were incessantly troubling Till one night he arose And stuck pins in his toes Which assuaged that Archbishop of Dublin. This was listed on at a Sotheby’s auction as one in a … Continue reading →

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There Was an Old Man of Cape Horn…

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

A variant version of both illustration and verse for ‘There was an Old Man of Cape Horn’. As first published in the 1846 edition of A Book of Nonsense, the limerick concludes “So he sat on a chair, till he … Continue reading →

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Edward Lear and Edward Gibbon

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

On 2 January 1882 Edward Lear wrote in his diary that he “took a Gibbon’s Rise & Fall up to Mrs. Welfords” and then at the bottom of the page added a limerick obviously inspired by this event: the poem … Continue reading →

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The First English Limerick?

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

The text set as No. XXII in Michael East’s Second Set of Madrigals 1606 is an almost perfect limerick (East, xii and 115-20; Fellowes, 91{1}); a fact which I believe has not been noted before. The piece runs: O metaphysical … Continue reading →

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Northrop Frye on Edward Lear and the Limerick

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

From Northrop Frye’s 1932 Notebook: July 23 I read a book on the limerick the other day by some supercilious ass who talked about Edward Lear as a pioneer but a childish and inane primitive because his first and last … Continue reading →

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Carolyn Wells, The Troubled Whale

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

Carolyn Wells, “The Troubled Whale.” Illustrated by J.M. Condé. The Metropolitan Magazine, vol. XXII no. 5, August 1905, p. 545.

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Carolyn Wells, The Pround Eel

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

Carolyn Wells, “The Proud Eel.” Illustrated by J.M. Condé. The Metropolitan Magazine, vol. XXII no. 4, July 1905, p. 512.

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