Howard Robinson - Edward Lear: Artist and Writer of Nonsense

The Edward Lear we all know and love was the writer of much nonsense verse, including children’s favourites The Owl and the Pussycat and The Jumblies, as well as many poems in the form of limericks (which, incidentally, he illustrated). Primarily an artist – a painter of water colours which were used to illustrate travel journals as well as oil paintings, which he sold to the more well-to-do families of the day – he even taught Queen Victoria and her daughter, Victoria, to paint. A multi-talented Victorian who, perhaps, deserves more consideration than he is generally given?