Editing Edward Lear (section)

==Author==
[[File:Edward Lear sketches dated 15 May 1864, from Paddy Leigh Fermor collection.jpg|thumbnail|Lear sketches dated 15 May 1864, from [[Paddy Leigh Fermor]]'s collection]]
In 1846, Lear published ''[[:s:The Book of Nonsense|A Book of Nonsense]],'' a volume of limericks which went through three editions and helped popularise the form and the genre of [[literary nonsense]]. In 1871, he published ''Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets'', which included the nonsense song "[[The Owl and the Pussy-Cat]]", which he wrote for the children of his patron [[Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby]]. Many other works followed.

Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour developed that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl of Derby. Promoters of this rumour offered as evidence that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an [[anagram]] of "Earl".<ref>{{cite book|last=Lear|first=Edward|title=More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc.|year=1894|chapter=Introduction|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13650/13650-h/13650-h.htm#introduction3}}</ref>
[[File:The falls of the Kalama Albania 1851 by Edward Lear 1812-1888.jpg|thumb|''The falls of the Kalama'', [[Albania]] 1851]]
Lear's nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet's delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed [[rhinoceros]] becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper". A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges into "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud". His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies. One of his most famous verbal inventions, the phrase "[[runcible]] spoon", occurs in the closing lines of "[[The Owl and the Pussy-Cat]]" and is now found in many English dictionaries.
{{poemquote|
They dined on [[Ground meat|mince]] and slices of [[quince]],
    Which they ate with a [[runcible]] spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand
    They danced by the light of the moon,
                The moon,
                The moon,
    They danced by the light of the moon.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lear |first=Edward |author-link=Edward Lear |editor-last=Strachey |editor-first=Constance Braham |title=The Complete Nonsense Book |date=1912 |publisher=Duffield & Company |location=New York |oclc=1042550888 |url=https://archive.org/details/completenonsense01lear |pages=[https://archive.org/details/completenonsense01lear/page/125 125]-127}}</ref>
|source=lines 27–33}}

Though known for his [[neologisms]], Lear used a number of other devices in his works in order to defy [[Schema (psychology)|reader expectations]]. For example, "Cold Are the Crabs"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ingeb.org/songs/coldaret.html |title=Cold Are the Crabs |publisher=Ingeb.org |access-date=16 January 2012}}</ref> conforms to the [[sonnet]] tradition until its dramatically foreshortened last line.

[[Image:1862ca-a-book-of-nonsense--edward-lear-001.jpg|thumb|''A Book of Nonsense'' (c. 1875 James Miller edition) by Edward Lear]]
Today, limericks are invariably typeset as five lines. Lear's limericks, however, were published in a variety of formats; it appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. For the first three editions, most are typeset as, respectively, two, five, and three lines. The cover of one edition<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/index.html |title=Edward Lear, A Book of Nonsense |publisher=Nonsenselit.org |access-date=16 January 2012}}</ref> bears an entire limerick typeset in two lines:
{{poemquote|
There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a Book, and with laughter they shook, at the fun of that Derry down Derry!}}

In Lear's limericks, the first and last lines usually end with the same word rather than rhyming. For the most part they are truly nonsensical and devoid of any punch line or point. They are completely free of the [[off-color humour|bawdiness]] with which the verse form is now associated. A typical thematic element is the presence of a callous and critical "they". An example of a typical Lear limerick:
{{poemquote|
There was an Old Man of [[Aosta|Aôsta]]
Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her;
But they said, "Don't you see she has run up a tree,
You invidious Old Man of Aôsta?"<ref>{{cite book |last=Lear |first=Edward |author-link=Edward Lear |editor-last=Strachey |editor-first=Constance Braham  |title=The Complete Nonsense Book |date=1912 |publisher=Duffield & Company |location=New York |oclc=1042550888 |url=https://archive.org/details/completenonsense01lear |page=[https://archive.org/details/completenonsense01lear/page/108 108]}}</ref>}}

Lear's self-description in verse, ''How Pleasant to know Mr. Lear,'' ends with this [[stanza]], a reference to his own mortality:
{{poemquote|
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!<ref>{{cite book |last=Lear |first=Edward |author-link=Edward Lear |editor-last=Strachey |editor-first=Constance Braham  |title=The Complete Nonsense Book |date=1912 |publisher=Duffield & Company |location=New York |oclc=1042550888 |url=https://archive.org/details/completenonsense01lear |pages=[https://archive.org/details/completenonsense01lear/page/420 420]-421}}</ref>
|source=Stanza 8 (lines 29–32)}}

Five of Lear's limericks from the ''Book of Nonsense'' (in the 1946 Italian translation by Carlo Izzo) were set to music for choir a cappella by [[Goffredo Petrassi]] in 1952.