| Contents |
Prologue: "It's absurd..." -- I. Fledgling -- One foot off the ground -- With the girls -- "O Sussex!" -- II. Perching -- To the zoo -- Knowsley -- Tribes and species -- Make 'em laugh -- Mountains -- III. Flying -- "Rome is Rome" -- Happy as a hedgehog -- Third person -- Excursions -- Derry down Derry: Nonsense, 1846 -- "Something is about to happen" -- "Calmly, into the dice-box" -- "All that amber" -- IV. Tumbling -- The brotherhood -- Meeting the poet -- An owl in the desert -- Half a life: Corfu and Athos -- Bible lands -- A was an ass -- Home again, Rome again -- No more -- V. Circling -- "Overconstrained to folly":Nonsense, 1861 -- "Mr Lear the artist" -- "From island unto island" -- "What a charming life an artist's is!" -- "the "marriage" phantasy" -- "Gradually extinguified" -- VI. Calling -- Sail away: Cannes, 1868-1869 -- "Three groans for Corsica!" -- Degli inglesi -- Nonsense Songs and More Nonsense -- Restless in San Remo -- India -- Families -- Laughable Lyrics -- VII. Swooping -- Shocks -- The Villa Tennyson -- "As great a fool as ever I was" -- Pax vobiscum" |
| Abstract |
"Edward Lear, the renowned English artist, musician, author, and poet, lived a vivid, fascinating life, but confessed, 'I hardly enjoy any one thing on earth while it is present' ... Lear was a man of great simplicity and charm--children adored him--yet his humor masked epilepsy, depression, and loneliness. [The author's] beautifully illustrated biography, full of the color of the age, brings us his swooping moods, passionate friendships, and restless travels"--Amazon.com. |
