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I will publish here some historical articles on Lear and Nonsense literature
as well as something I am writing on the limerick and the relationship
between the origins of comics and Nonsense. Any contributions would be
welcome.
To download pdf files to your computer (recommended) right click the
link and choose "Save Object As..."; the files contain images
of the articles and are mostly above 1Mb. You will need the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to see these files.
- Carolyn Wells, A Nonsense Anthology, New York, Charles Scribners'
Sons, 1903 [actually October 1902].
pdf [full book in searchable image
format, 9Mb]
- [Sir Edward Strachey], Nonsense As a Fine Art, Littel's
Living Age. Fifth Series, Volume LXIV, Oct-Nov-Dec 1888, pp. 515-531
(reprints from Quarterly Review, 167, 1888, pp. 335-65).
pdf page images at
MoA
- STRACHEY, Sir Edward, Talk at a Country House: Taking Leave; Emile
Souvestre; Edward Lear; Retrospect, The Atlantic Monthly, vol. LXXIII,
1894, pp. 625-36 (this is the ninth instalment in a series of 10 entitled
Talk at a Country House by Strachey. First publication of Lear's
Eclogue).
pdf page
images at MoA
- Word-Twisting versus Nonsense, Littel's Living Age,
Fifth Series, vol. LVIII, April-May-June 1887, pp. 379-81.
pdf page
images at MoA
- Carolyn Wells, Introduction to A
Nonsense Anthology, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903, pp.
xix-xxxiii.
- Fanny Kemble and Lear in Italy, Littel's Living Age,
vol XV, October-November-December 1847, pp. 481-94 (a review of Lear's
Illustrated Excursions in Italy originally published in the Quarterly
Review).
pdf page
images at MoA
- Nonsense, Scribners Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 6, October
1871, pp. 668-9.
pdf page
images at MoA
- G.K. Chesterton, Child
Psychology and Nonsense
This is an interesting interpretation of children's literature in the
Victorian age, contrasting it to traditional nursery rhymes, here represented
by Hey Diddle Diddle (see Lear's
pictures for the rhyme).
- George Orwell, Nonsense Poetry
A review of Mégroz's edition, first published in 1945.
- George Orwell, Funny, But Not Vulgar
Also from 1945, this refers to Lear's humour as "a sort of poltergeist
interference with common sense"!
- Michele Sala, Lear's
Nonsense. Beyond Children Literature
- Clifton
Snider, Victorian Trickster: A Jungian Consideration of Edward Lear's
Nonsense Verse
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The Limerick
My long-promised article on the origins of the form.
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Arthur Deex, The Assent of Limerick
A hypothesis on the origin of the term "limerick" as applied to the
five-line poem. This is taken from The Pentatette, the newsletter
of the Limerick Special Interest Group, which he edits. Visit the
Group's
home page!
Arthur has the most complete list of limerick-related literature I
have ever seen (more than 1,600 books!), which has been a great help
in preparing my own article below, so if you are looking for information
on the limerick or on his Newsletter mail
him.
Under the Pseudonym of Martin Wellborn, he is also the author of The
Edwardian Leer, a parody of Lear's Book of Nonsense,
containing "the original 112 canonic Lear nonsense verses before they
were censored by the publisher".
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Thomastic Limericks
A collection of contributions to The Pentatette, the newsletter
of the Limerick Special Interest Group, May-October 1985
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Sir Edward Strachey's Introduction to Lear's
Nonsense Songs and Stories (1895)
Prepared by Anatoly Vorobey.
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Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Nonsense
Prepared by Adele Cammarata (in Italian).
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A Review of the Victorian Database on CD-ROM
published by LITIR Database
c/o Department of English. University of Alberta. Edmonton. Alberta.
Canada T6G 2E5.
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A Review of MAXIMA New Media's Lear CD-ROM
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