A Blog of Bosh

Although it may sound sacrilegious, some artists have actually chosen to re-illustrate the verses in Edward Lear’s A Book of Nonsense. These Latter Day Neo Reform Limericks keep popping up everyday in bookshops.

It’s not that Lear didn’t get it, or that Lear couldn’t draw, it’s just that that was then and this is now. [...]

Arthur Deex has digitized two more early limerick books, Ye Book of Bubbles (1864) and Ye Book of Sense (c1870), and writes of the latter:

A Review in the May 88 Pentatette
A recent addition to my collection was a book of limericks that was previously unknown to me: Ye Book of Sense: A [...]

Arthur Deex has acquired a very nice copy of a rare book of limericks and has kindly chosen to share it:

Lyrics Pathetic and Humorous from A to Z by Edmund Dulac (1882-1953) is a delightful Alphabet Book of 24 colorful plates (X, Y & Z are combined), each with a limerick. The book was [...]

The recently launched Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, provides a great collection of early recordings from the Edison era.
Among these Edward M. Favor’s Fol-the-rol-lol is one of my favourites, at least since Arthur Deex sent me a cassette with one of the two recorded versions (I’m sorry to [...]

There once was a wee humble ditty
By Shannon RoeToday being St. Patrick’s Day, the least we can do is doff our derbies to that bit of Irish doggerel called the limerick.
From its name, you might think this five-line verse form originated in the town of Limerick, Ireland. But not necessarily. No one knows for [...]

The Limerick Challenge
To mark National Poetry Day, you are formally invited to join the Magazine’s Limerick Challenge.BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | 9 October 2003

The Real Limerick
Again, a newgroup message discussing my “dry treatise” on the limerick in some detail. Intersting for the limericks by Swinburne it quotes.

“The Limerick is Furtive and Mean…”
From the Maigue poets to Ogden Nash, witty wordsmiths have delighted in composing the oft-risqu� five-line verses.[Nice article, though it repeats the myth of the Irish origin of the limerick and does not mention Lear's direct antecedents. Thanks to Arthur Deex for sending me the link: ah, don't forget to [...]

How Come the Translation of a Limerick Can Have Four Lines (Or Can It?)
by Gideon Toury
in: Word, Text, Translation: Liber Amicorum for Peter Newmark,eds Gunilla Anderman & Margaret Rogers. Clevedon etc.: Multilingual Matters, 1999, 163-174.

The Learian Limericks Augmented and Revised
[I never thought they needed augmentation and/or revision; anyway here is Mr Jeliss's presentation of his 'improvements' -- Marco.]
Many of the nonsense verses of Edward Lear which take the form now known as a limerick end with a line that merely repeats the first line with but slight variation. Since [...]