Tag Archives: nonsense rhymes

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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Music from Edward Lear’s Works

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Marco Graziosi

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 →

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La taupe suspendue

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Marco Graziosi

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 →

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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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Legend of the Large Mouth

Posted on October 4, 2021 by Marco Graziosi

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 →

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Peter Newell, Not He

Posted on July 29, 2021 by Marco Graziosi

???

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Peter Newell, Dolly Dot’s Visitor

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Marco Graziosi

The Delineator, February 1918, p. 33.

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Variant Versions of Edward Lear’s Limericks

Posted on July 1, 2021 by Marco Graziosi

‘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 →

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