Tag Archives: nonsense rhymes

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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Edward Lear to Lady Rawlinson

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

An 1866 advertising circular Edward Lear sent to Lady Rawlinson (wife of Sir Henry Rawlinson), enclosing an alphabet “towards the education of [her] son” (unfortunately not included) and two photographs, one of which, Lear painting in his studio, I do not … Continue reading →

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An Edward Lear Unpublished Alphabet

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

The alphabet had already been sold at a Christie’s auction in New York in 2005; it was made by Edward Lear between 27 February and 1 March 1858 for Ida Nea Shakespear (also see 2 March). Sotheby’s catalogue entry for the … Continue reading →

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Peter Newell’s Signor Marconi

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Marco Graziosi
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Uncle Arly’s Tune (and a New Lear Self-Caricature)

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

In a recent post celebrating Edward Lear’s 204th brithday on the Untold Lives blog at the British Library Alexandra Ault, Curator of Manuscripts and Archives 1601-1850, posts a nice self-caricature of Lear and his cat Foss from a letter to … Continue reading →

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Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Edward Lear

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

It has always irked Paul that posterity regards him as the tuneful, cosy, safe side of the Lennon–McCartney partnership and John as the rebel, experimenter and iconoclast. The casting had been decided in Liverpool, then Hamburg, where he’d always hung … Continue reading →

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John Lennon, Edward Lear, and Nonsense

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

An English exercise book from his junior year at Quarry Bank—neatly covered in brown paper and titled MY ANTHOLOGY—demonstrates what pains he [John Lennon] would take if his enthusiasm were aroused. Quotations from classic poems like Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha … 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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Mind Your Language

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

Many people think a runcible spoon is a sort of pickle-fork with a serrated edge. If that is what they call it, then that is the word for it, but it is not the same word that Edward Lear used … Continue reading →

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Katharine West, Nonsense and Wit (1946)

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

SHOULD the British Council or arty other body concerned with the “projection of Britain” endeavour to make known abroad the unique British heritage of nonsense? Every country has its nursery rhymes and fairy tales; but, as M. Emile Cammaerts writes … Continue reading →

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