Edward Lear

Edward Lear wrote a well-known autobiographical poem that begins “How pleasant to know Mr Lear!” But how well do we really know him? On the one hand he is, in John Ashbery’s words, “one of the most popular poets who ever lived”; on the other hand he has often been overlooked or marginalized by scholars and in literary histories. This book, the first full length critical study of the poet since the 1980s, sets out to re-introduce Lear and to accord him his proper place: as a major Victorian figure of continuing appeal and relevance, and especially as a poet of beauty, comedy, and profound ingenuity. It approaches Lear’s work thematically, tracing some of its most fundamental subjects and situations. Grounded in attentive close readings, it connects Lear’s nonsense poetry with his various other creative endeavours: as a zoological illustrator and landscape painter, a travel writer, and a prolific diarist and correspondent.