Tag Archives: nonsense rhymes

A Hierarchy of Nonsense, By John Kropf

[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

Posted in Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Nonsense Lyrics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

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

Posted in Edward Lear, Limerick, Nonsense Lyrics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Aubrey Beardsley’s Limerick on Illustrating Le Morte Darthur

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

Posted in Limerick, Nonsense Lyrics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Music from Edward Lear’s Works

I have started revising the page on Recording of Edward Lear Poems inserting links to the pieces available on Tidal and/or Spotify (of course they may be available on other services too). Here is a just-published CD which includes the … Continue reading

Posted in Edward Lear | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

La taupe suspendue

Félix Bracquemond (Paris 1833–1914 Sèvres), Les Taupes, 1854. Etching; sixth state of seven. Sheet: 19 1/8 × 12 1/16 in. (48.6 × 30.7 cm) Plate: 10 5/8 × 7 5/8 in. (27 × 19.4 cm). Inscribed in plate, lower right: … Continue reading

Posted in Edward Lear | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense Literature

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

Posted in Edward Lear, General, Lewis Carroll, Nonsense Lyrics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Legend of the Large Mouth

Food is one of the recurrent themes of Victorian Nonsense and Edward Lear certainly used it quite a lot; some of his limericks present gluttony as rather scary, for instance ther “Old Man of Calcutta”: The “Old man of the … Continue reading

Posted in Edward Lear | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Peter Newell, Not He

???

Posted in Peter Newell | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Peter Newell, Dolly Dot’s Visitor

The Delineator, February 1918, p. 33.

Posted in Peter Newell | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Variant Versions of Edward Lear’s Limericks

‘There was an old person of Skye,/ Who was nearly a hundred feet high;/ He seemed to the people/ As tall as a steeple,/ And served as a lighthouse on Skye.’ (upper left) pen and brown ink, partial watermark ’18…’ … Continue reading

Posted in Edward Lear | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment