Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue
Edward Lear (1812-1888), Artist and author of 'A Book of Nonsense'
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Landscape painter and writer; born 12 (or possibly 13) May 1812, in Holloway, London, the twentieth of twenty-one children. Brought up by his eldest sister Ann; trained as an ornithological draughtsman 1829; published Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1830–32); illustrated menagerie at Knowsley for Lord Derby 1831–7; bad health and deep interest in landscape took him to Italy for most of the 1840s and he never truly settled back in Britain; published A Book of Nonsense (1846, publ. US 1863); attended Royal Academy Schools (for figure drawing) 1850; exhibited landscapes RA 1850s; introduced to William Holman Hunt (‘the most significant meeting of his painting career’)[2] 1852; published seven illustrated travel books 1841–70; books of nonsense, alphabets, nursery rhymes, etc. hugely popular and profitable; wrote musical settings to Tennyson poems 1853, 1858;[1] travelled in Italy, Greece and Middle East 1850s–60s; built Villa Emily 1870–71, and later Villa Tennyson 1881, both at San Remo, Italy; continued to draw and publish until late 1870s; died almost unnoticed in the English press, 29 January 1888, at Villa Tennyson, and was buried San Remo.[3]
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff;
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;
Long ago he was one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall,
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in a waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, ‘He’s come out in his night-
gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!’
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads but he cannot speak Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger-beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear![4]
Carol Blackett-Ord
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff;
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;
Long ago he was one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall,
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in a waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, ‘He’s come out in his night-
gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!’
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads but he cannot speak Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger-beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear![4]
Carol Blackett-Ord
Footnotesback to top
1) See also illustrations to Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1889, posthumous).
2) Noakes 2004.
3) There was no notice in The Times. Lear, who was frustrated by the lack of critical recognition for his landscape paintings, would have found the appreciations after his death (and the DNB article publ. 1892) entirely as expected: ‘Mr Edward Lear, the popular artist, author, and musician, is less likely to be remembered, we venture to think, by his pictorial work than by his books […] He chiefly practised landscape painting, for he was specially in harmony with what is known as the “classic” branch of it; but his humorous faculty was more remarkable than his serious gifts, and certainly more popularly appreciated’: MA, 1888, obits, p.xxiv.
4) Self-description in mid-sixties, San Remo, 14 Jan. 1879, BL, London, MS coll.; publ. Lear 1888.
Referencesback to top
Bennett 1988Bennett, M., Artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle: The First Generation. Catalogue of Works in the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley Art Gallery, Liverpool and London, 1988.
Brighton 1988
How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear, exh. cat., Brighton Museum, 1988.
Bronkhurst 2006
Bronkhurst, J.E., William Holman Hunt, a catalogue raisonné, 2 vols, New Haven and London, 2006.
Chitty 1988
Chitty, S., That Singular Person called Lear, London, 1988.
Davidson 1968
Davidson, A., Edward Lear, London, 1968.
Fisher 2002
Fisher, C., ed., A Passion for Natural History: The Life and Legacy of the 13th Earl of Derby, Liverpool, 2002.
Harrington 2011
Harrington, P., Nicolas Bentley Drew the Pictures, exh. cat., Peter Harrington Gallery, London, 2011.
Lear 1872
Lear, E., More Nonsense, London, 1872.
Lear 1888
Lear, E., Nonsense Books, Boston, 1888.
Lehmann 1977
Lehmann, J., Edward Lear and his World, London, 1977.
Levi 1995
Levi, P., Edward Lear, London, 1995.
Noakes 1968
Noakes, V., Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer, London, 1968.
Noakes et al. 1985
Noakes, V., and others, Edward Lear 1812–1888, exh. cat., Royal Academy, London, 1985.
Noakes 1988
Noakes, V. ed., Edward Lear: Selected Letters, Oxford, 1988.
Noakes 2001
Noakes., V. ed., Edward Lear: The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense, Oxford, 2001.
Noakes 2004
Noakes, V., ‘Lear, Edward (1812–1888)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; online ed., October 2006.
San Remo 1997
Edward Lear, exh. cat., Museo Civico, San Remo, 1997.
Strachey 1907
Strachey, Lady, ed., Letters of Edward Lear, London, 1907.
Strachey 1911a
Strachey, Lady, ed., Later Letters of Edward Lear, London, 1911.
Strachey 1911b
Strachey, Lady, ed., Queery Leary Nonsense, London, 1911.