Personal Choice Volume 2 No.37

Edward Lear started painting for a living in his teens and his first serious work was a beautiful set of parrots in London Zoo.

If you asked a child perhaps decades ago now to tell you a poem that they knew by heart, there’s a good chance that they would begin ‘The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat.’  Dear Edward Lear, I do hope that in some blissful nonsensical afterlife he knows how loved though he still is, and I hope he dances by the light of the moon - just like the owl - who is of course the bespectacled Lear himself.

From The owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear

‘Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

   Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’

So they took it away, and were married next day

   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on 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.

Edward Lear (1812 - 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry.