Mr Lear

by Jenny Uglow

  NYPL New York Public Library

  Princeton Special Collections, Princeton University Library

  RA Royal Academy, London

  RSM Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh

  Taunton Somerset Heritage Centre, Taunton

  TRC Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln

  V&A Victoria & Albert Museum, London

  VNA Vivien Noakes Archive, Somerville College, Oxford

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  For published works by Lear, manuscripts, articles and books on Lear and on nonsense generally, see Marco Graziosi’s useful listings on nonsenselit.wordpress.com/bibliographies, and Peter Swaab, ‘Edward Lear’ in Oxford Bibliographies 2013, www.oxfordbibliographies.com; for the nonsense, see also the Select Bibliography in Play, 370–2; and for earlier criticism, Ann Colley, Edward Lear and the Critics (1993). For dispersal of Lear manuscripts and their collection, see Hope Mayo, ‘The Edward Lear Collection at Harvard University’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 22.2–3 (2011), 69–124.

  In the list below, Lear’s published and edited writings are presented chronologically, and other works alphabetically. Articles, essays and other books are cited in full in the relevant notes.

  Edward Lear diary

  D Diary 1858–88, Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng 797.3

  Entries from 1858 to 1865 are transcribed by Marco Graziosi in ‘The Edward Lear Diaries’, https://leardiaries.wordpress.com/

  Published works

  Parrots Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832)

  Views Views in Rome and Its Environs (1841)

  BN (1846) A Book of Nonsense, by Derry down Derry (1846, repr. 1855)

  Excursions Illustrated Excursions in Italy, 2 vols (1846)

  Gleanings Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall, ed. J. E. Gray (1846)

  Albania Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania (1851)

  Calabria Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria (1852)

  Tennyson Songs Poems and Songs by Alfred Tennyson, Set to Music by Edward Lear (1853, expanded with five new songs, 1859)

  BN (1861) A Book of Nonsense (3rd edn, enlarged 1861)

  Ionian Isles Views in the Seven Ionian Islands (1863)

  Corsica Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica (1870)

  NSSBA Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (1871)

  MN More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, &c. (1872)

  LaL Laughable Lyrics, A Fourth Book of Nonsense Poems, Songs, Botany, Music, &c. (1877)

  Posthumously published

  Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, illustrated by Edward Lear (1889)

  NSS Nonsense Songs and Stories (1895)

  QLN Queery Leary Nonsense, ed. Lady Strachey (1911)

  CNB The Complete Nonsense Book, ed. Lady Strachey (1912)

  Bird The Lear Coloured Bird Book for Children (1912)

  Jackson The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear, ed. Holbrook Jackson (1947)

  T&Q Teapots and Quails, and Other New Nonsense, ed. Angus Davidson and Philip Hofer (1953)

  Original Lear in the Original, ed. Herman W. Liebert (1975)

  B&N Edward Lear: Bosh & Nonsense (1982)

  CN The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense, ed. Vivien Noakes (2001, and as The Complete Nonsense and Other Verse, 2006)

  Letters

  L Letters of Edward Lear […] to Chichester Fortescue, etc.,ed. Lady Strachey (1907)

  LL Later Letters of Edward Lear […] to Chichester Fortescue, etc., ed. Lady Strachey (1911)

  SL Edward Lear: Selected Letters, ed. Vivien Noakes (1988)

  Edited journals

  Sicily Edward Lear in Sicily, intr. Granville Proby (1938)

  ELJ Edward Lear’s Journals: A Selection, ed. Herbert van Thal (1952)

  IJ Edward Lear’s Indian Journal, ed. Ray Murphy (1953)

  Lear’s Corfu Lear’s Corfu: An Anthology drawn from the Painter’s Letters (1965)

  Crete Edward Lear: The Cretan Journal, ed. Rowena Fowler (1984)

  Levant Edward Lear in the Levant: Travels in Albania, Greece and Turkey in Europe, 1848–1849, ed. Rowena Fowler (1988)

  CY Edward Lear: the Corfu Years: A Chronicle Presented through His Letters and Journals (1988)

  Swaab ‘Over the Land and Over the Sea’: Edward Lear, Selected Nonsense and Travel Writings, ed. Peter Swaab (2005)

  Other works and sources

  AT Letters The Letters of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ed. Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon, 3 vols (1982–90)

  Bosh ‘A Blog of Bosh’, Marco Graziosi, https://nonsenselit.wordpress.com

  Brown Daniel Brown, The Poetry of Victorian Scientists: Style, Science and Nonsense (2013)

  Byrom Thomas Byrom, Nonsense and Wonder: The Poems and Cartoons of Edward Lear (1977)

  Chitty Susan Chitty, That Singular Person Called Lear (1988)

  Colley Ann C. Colley, Wild Animal Skins in Victorian Britain (2014)

  Davidson Angus Davidson, Edward Lear: Landscape Painter and Nonsense Poet, 1812–1888 (1938)

  Dehejia Vidya Dehejia, Impossible Picturesqueness: Edward Lear’s Indian Watercolours, 1873–1875 (1988)

  Deleuze Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (2001)

  Drummond Maldwin Drummond, After You Mr Lear: In the Wake of Edward Lear in Italy (2007)

  ET Journal Lady Tennyson’s Journal, ed. James O. Hoge (1981)

  ET Letters The Letters of Emily Tennyson, ed. James O. Hoge (1974)

  Fisher Clemency Fisher (ed.), A Passion for Natural History: The Life and Legacy of the 13th Earl of Derby (2002)

  Fowler Daniel Fowler, ‘Autobiography’ in Daniel Fowler of Amherst Island, 1810–94 (catalogue, Kingston, Ontario, 1979)

  Gaschke Jenny Gaschke, Edward Lear: Egyptian Sketches, National Maritime Museum catalogue (2009)

  Hark Ina Rae Hark, Edward Lear (1982)

  Harrison Colin Harrison, Edward Lear: Drawings and Watercolours (1995)

  HLB Harvard Library Bulletin

  Haughton Hugh Haughton (ed.), The Chatto Book of Nonsense Poetry (1988)

  Hofer Philip Hofer, Edward Lear as a Landscape Draughtsman (1967)

  Hunt William Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 2 vols (1905)

  Hyman Susan Hyman, Edward Lear’s Birds (1980)

  Lecercle Jean-Jacques Lecercle, The Philosophy of Nonsense: The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature (1994)

  Lehman John Lehman, Edward Lear and His World (1977)

  Levi Peter Levi, Edward Lear: A Biography (1995)

  Lloyd Stephen Lloyd (ed.), Art, Animals and Politics: Knowsley and the Earls of Derby (2016)

  Montgomery Michael Montgomery, The Owl and the Pussy Cats (2012)

  Noakes Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear: the Life of a Wanderer (1968, rev. 1979, 2004)

  North Marianne North, Recollections of a Happy Life (1892)

  Nugent Charles Nugent, Edward Lear the Landscape Artist: Tours of Ireland and the English Lakes 1835 and 1836, Wordsworth Trust exhibition catalogue (2009)

  ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

  Original Herman W. Liebert (ed.), Lear in the Original: Drawings and Limericks by Edward Lear from his Book of Nonsense (1975)

  Painter Vivien Noakes, The Painter Edward Lear (1991)

  Peck Robert McCracken Peck, The Natural History of Edward Lear (2016)

  Pitman Ruth Pitman, Edward Lear’s Tennyson (1988)

  Play James Williams and Matthew Bevis (eds), Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry (2016)

  RA Vivien Noakes (ed.), Edward Lear 1812–1888, Royal Academy Exhibition catalogue (1985)

  Regis Amber K. Regis (ed.), The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition (2017)

  RSV Rivista di Studi Vittoriani 34–5 (2013), special issue, Edward Lear in the Third Millennium, Explorations into His Art and Writing, ed. Raffaella Antinucci and Anna Enrichetta Soccio

  Sauer Gordon C. Sauer,
John Gould: The Bird Man, 5 vols, (1982–97)

  Schiller Justin Schiller, Nonsensus: Cross-Referencing Edward Lear’s Original 116 Limericks (1988)

  Sewell Elizabeth Sewell, The Field of Nonsense (1952)

  Shelves William B. Osgood Field, Edward Lear on My Shelves (1933)

  Tigges, Exp. Wim Tigges (ed.), Explorations in the Field of Nonsense (1987)

  Tigges, Anat. Wim Tigges, An Anatomy of Literary Nonsense (1988)

  Waller John O. Waller, A Circle of Friends: the Tennysons and the Lushingtons of Park House (1986)

  Wilcox Scott Wilcox, Edward Lear and the Art of Travel (2000)

  Wonderland Jackie Wullschlager, Inventing Wonderland: The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J. M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame and A. A. Milne (1995)

  NOTES

  Unless otherwise indicated, all letters from EL to Ann are in the collection of Dr David Michell, and those to Fanny and George Coombe (FC, GC) are in the Warne Collection, V&A.

  Prologue

  ‘Lear could fly’. EL to Evelyn Baring, n.d. and 19 February 1864, QLN 9, 11.

  ‘Auden’ and ‘Orwell’. W. H. Auden, Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (1966), 127; George Orwell, review of R. L. Megroz, The Lear Omnibus, in Tribune, 1945. For ‘to encourage the bird’ see Swaab.

  ‘On his left, a sheet’. Elizabeth Bishop, ‘The Sandpiper’ (1956), from The Complete Poems 1927–1979.

  1. One Foot off the Ground

  ‘O Brother Chicken!’. Written in June 1880, CN 432.

  ‘not wholly responsible’. EL to CF, 27 June 1884, LL 311.

  ‘Different lists are confused’. This list is from the Papers of Ellen Newsom, V&A. Lear sometimes said twenty-one (EL to CF, 18 July 1859), but at other times, e.g. to E. Carus Selwyn, he said nineteen. Family sources (never listing more than seventeen) include ‘List of birth dates’ of surviving children, and a Family Tree, c.1900. Some lists include an ‘Olivier’ who does not seem to have existed.

  ‘The Lear family were nonconformists’. Haberdasher’s Hall, ‘Register of Births and Baptisms, 1785–1825’ RG4/4343: online at BMDregisters.co.uk. On 1 November 1822, when Lear’s sister Sarah married, John Coates, the registrar at Dr Williams’ Library, registered Lear’s birth as 13 May, in Holloway in the Parish of St Mary Islington: at the same time he registered the other twelve surviving children in the General Register of Births of Protestant Dissenters, RG4/4664. Birth certificate, V&A, RA 74. For ‘bigots and fools’: D 19 April 1859.

  ‘He was born’. EL to HC, 12 May 1882, Noakes 268, n. 1, Houghton MS Eng 797.3.

  ‘Memory’s Arch’. D 4 August 1880.

  ‘Lør’. LL 18, also EL to HC, 31 December 1882, and EL to E. Carus Selwyn, ‘Late Letters of Edward Lear’, Cornhill (1910), 396. Widely repeated by friends and early biographers.

  ‘As for memory’. EL to E. Carus Selwyn, RA 74.

  ‘gingerbread baker’. George Lear, 1666–1745: www.genealogy.com.

  ‘sugar refining’. For Lear connections, partners and wills, see Bryan Mawer, ‘Sugar Refiners and Bakers’, mawer.clara.net.

  ‘he married the nineteen-year-old Ann Clark Skerrett’. 24 August 1783, Wanstead Parish Church Register. Ann was descended from Eleanor Grainger, sixth child of Alice Brignall and John Grainger: Eleanor’s grandaughter married Edward Skerrett. The money and land went to a different branch. ‘Master of the Fruiterers’. Fruiterers Company Minute Book, 1799.

  ‘Henry Chesmer’. Or ‘Chesner’; son of Jeremiah Lear’s sister Sarah, m. Thomas Chesner, Whitechapel, 1773. In 1811, Henry, a City import–export merchant was declared bankrupt after a failed deal involving Spanish wool; London Gazette, 28 February 1811. He moved to the West Indies and then Canada: the court case continued until 1829.

  ‘when the stock exchange became a formal subscription body’. The proprietors raised 400 shares of £50 each. Jeremiah Lear was sworn in as broker, 12 March 1799, Records of Corporation of London, LMA, Brokers COL/BR; Share, 1801. List of Proprietors of the New Stock Exchange, LMA Guildhall CLC/B/004/B/01/MS14600.

  ‘Heames Lane’. Replaced by the Seven Sisters Road, early 1830s.

  ‘demolishing the house’. It was replaced by nine shops, backing on to the present Bowman’s Mews. Bowman’s Lodge Deeds, LMA B/MMN/6/27.

  ‘old Bowman’s Lodge’. D 17 October 1858.

  ‘My room – ehi! ehi!’. D 10 September 1863.

  ‘Elizabeth Duke’. Thomas Kitson Cromwell, Walks through Islington, 1835; in A History of the County of Middlesex: Victoria County History VI (1980). The water-proof patent was granted to J. R. Ackermann, 1801.

  ‘I think a great deal’. EL to CF, 27 June 1884, LL 311.

  ‘so very awful’. James Grant, The Great Metropolis (1837), II, 13. Jeremiah Lear’s default: Stock Exchange, Register of Defaulters, LMA Guildhall CLC/B/004/G. Debt paid by William Smith Jr.

  ‘King’s Bench’. Told by Sarah Lear’s daughter-in-law Sophie Street to her granddaughter Eleanor Bowen (née Gillies), 1907; Bowen transcript, Letter File 1, VNA.

  ‘kept afloat’. Ann Lear had £800 p.a. (Bowen transcript); ‘Josiah Lear’ paid the rates late 1820–5: this may be a clerical error as no Josiah Lear appears in records of the Lear family. Henry and Frederick admitted as clerks, 29 July 1816, 1 April 1820: ‘Lear F.’, is noted in the Times Register of Bankrupts 1 July–30 September 1818 (26 2a) and October–31 December 1819 (402b) F. Henry in the army: D 8 October 1861, and Bowen transcript: bought out after swapping from infantry to cavalry and deserting.

  ‘bacon and beans’. D 12 May 1881.

  ‘Sarah teaching him to draw’. D 2 August 1865, ‘forty-five years ago’.

  ‘more or less stupefied’. D 15 August 1866. The entry ends, ‘Thus, a sorrow so inborn & ingrained so to speak, was evidently part of what I had been born to suffer – & could not have been so far avoided willed I never so much so to do. And this is at times a great consolation to me in this life’s struggle & strife.’

  ‘a form of epilepsy’. Through its connections with the limbic system, epilepsy affecting the temporal lobe is also associated with the generation of primitive emotions. I am grateful to Steve Pollock for sharing his professional experience of treating epileptic patients, and to Charles Lewsen for discussions of Lear’s condition.

  ‘– & frightful dyspepsia’. D 11 January 1858.

  ‘George W.’. D 2 September 1862.

  ‘How I remember. D 21 August 1873.

  ‘The strong will’. D 15 August 1866.

  ‘It is wonderful’. D 14 February 1880.

  ‘to be sure he was not smoking’. EL to Ann, 9 September 1848.

  ‘a place earliest known’. D 9 February, 1867.

  ‘She painted a portrait of him’. ‘Portrait of Edwd. Painted by me when he was 9 years old. A.L.’ Peter Lear, Gillies Collection.

  ‘agreeable in the face’. D 10 October 1866. Miniature by Frederick Harding.

  ‘remembering my father’. D 7 June 1860.

  ‘The earliest of all the morbidnesses.’ D 23, 24 March 1877.

  2. With the Girls

  ‘spread around us’. Edinburgh Review 23 (April–September 1814), 205.

  ‘Frederick Harding’. b. 25 June 1799, son of Ann Clark Skerrett’s sister Sarah and her husband George Harding. After George died she married a Mr Knight: she appears in Lear’s letters as ‘Aunt Knight’. Frederick Harding later became a miniaturist, his portraits including one of Jeremiah Lear. He won prizes from the Society of Arts, 1814 and 1815, and exhibited at the RA and Society of British Artists 1825–57. Correspondence with Marco Graziosi.

  ‘just fifty years’. D 19 June 1871. Ellen sent news of Harding’s death: he worked out that Easter Monday 1822 was 8 April, and often marked this in his diary.

  ‘in a crowd of horrid boys’. Annotation in Froude’s Thomas Carlyle (1885), Noakes 11.

  ‘when I heard that Ld Byron was dead’. D 18 September 1861.

  ‘like Swift’s Stullbruggs’. EL to CF, 2 Septemb
er 1859, L 148. (misspelling of ‘Struldbruggs’)

  ‘His elder sisters’. Bowen transcript, Somerville.

  ‘I saw from the beach’. Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies, vol. 6.

  ‘I lead as quiet a life’. EL to Lady W, 1 January 1863. Noakes 165.

  ‘The Language Institution … founded in 1826’. First Report of the Language Institution (1826) 14; ‘with a view of imparting to the Heathen the knowledge of Christianity’.

  ‘a name-plate’. Davidson 5.

  ‘Albert Durer’. EL to Ann, 28 November 1857.

  ‘Hood’s light verse’. As collected in Whims and Oddities (1826), 27, and in Hood’s Own, or Laughter from Year to Year, and the Comic Annual series. See the brilliant study of Hood’s work and influence, Sara Lodge, Thomas Hood: Work, Play and Politics (2007).

  ‘In dreary silence’. CN 3–5, written 25 August 1825.

  ‘Dear, and very dear relation’. ‘To Miss Lear on her Birthday’, CN 5–8.

  ‘Major Wilby’. William Henry Wilby became a major in 1810, and lieutenant colonel in 1819.

  ‘a proposal’. RA 76 says the proposal came from Sir Claudius Hunter (1775–1851), Lord Mayor 1811–12, whose first wife died in 1840: he married again in 1841. In 1856 Lear mentions meeting his daughter-in-law in Corfu, whose husband, Sir Paul, ‘is the son of that Sir Claudius Hunter you were in love with so many years ago; so you see, that had you married Sir Claudius, this baronet would have been my nephew; but he is not, because you did not, or would not, marry his papa.’ EL to Ann, 10 February 1856.

  ‘Considering all I remember’. D 29 March 1868.

  ‘at the age of 14’. EL to Charles Empson, 1 October 1831, SL 14.

  ‘Dickens put George into the Pickwick Papers’. Quoted in Noakes 11.

  ‘a little talk with Dickens’. Frederick Kitton, Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil (1890).

  ‘as full of beggars as Russell Square’. EL to Ann, 3 November 1837, 3 May 1838, SL 28, 42.