| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.65
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.65, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Edward Lear is famous as the author of "A Book of Nonsense" and of the timeless children's songs, "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "The Jumblies". Yet, for this gentle genius, infectious merriment mingled with a deep sadness. Who is the man behind the nonsense? Born the twentieth of twenty-one children, he was rejected by his mother and brought up by his eldest sister. Almost entirely self-taught, at the age of nineteen Lear published "Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots", one the finest books of ornithological illustration ever produced. Then, at the age of twenty-five, he turned his back on this early success to become a traveller and landscape painter. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, he is now considered to be one of the finest painters of the Victoria age. Always an outsider, yet at ease with the noblest in the land, Lear was a friend of the Pre-Raphaelites and of Tennyson, and was drawing master to Queen Victoria. Loved by the children whom he entertained with his songs and stories, he was an innovator in both literature and art, bringing the largely oral tradition of Nonsense into the literary fold, and accompanying his verses with powerful but simple drawings that were revolutionary in their day and set the pattern for modern cartoon illustration.
About the Author
Dr Vivien Noakes, the leading expert on Lear's life and work, has rewritten her classic biography. She was curator of the major exhibition 'Edward Lear, 1812-1888' at the Royal Academy, London and the National Academy of Design, New York. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and previously lecturer at Somerville College, Oxford, her publications include The Painter Edward Lear and Edward Lear: The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a delight. I've never had much interest in nonsense verse and limericks but found this tome in a charity sale and was pleasantly surprised. Lear was a major Victorian figure and made his living painting natural history subjects and landscapes from around the world; his poems were only a sideline.
Throughout the text there are black-and-white pencil drawings by Lear. I particularly liked one of him in bed with a tower of furniture and vases about to fall on him. It reminded me of my own flat.
On the downside, the book is too short, ending with Lear's death. Although this seems a common-sense way to come to a conclusion, I would have prefered to know a bit more about his legacy. For example, whether the market for his paintings improved after his death and the fate of his friends, such as his one-time sweetheart Gussie.
Noakes writes warmly and sympathetically about a man whose epilepsy and broken childhood affected his whole life and whose kindly personality endeared him to both children and royalty. This book was a chance find but it utterly charmed me.
Throughout the text there are black-and-white pencil drawings by Lear. I particularly liked one of him in bed with a tower of furniture and vases about to fall on him. It reminded me of my own flat.
On the downside, the book is too short, ending with Lear's death. Although this seems a common-sense way to come to a conclusion, I would have prefered to know a bit more about his legacy. For example, whether the market for his paintings improved after his death and the fate of his friends, such as his one-time sweetheart Gussie.
Noakes writes warmly and sympathetically about a man whose epilepsy and broken childhood affected his whole life and whose kindly personality endeared him to both children and royalty. This book was a chance find but it utterly charmed me.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Wandering Englishman
12 Mar 2003
Format:Paperback
Vivien Noakes Edward Lear is a wonderful, clear, and enjoyable book. Mr lear the twentieth of twenty-one brothers and sisters, starts out interesting and stays that way through out his well traveled life. Prolific as a writer and painter suffering with epilepsy, this biography gives you just enough of the places he traveled, his art, personel life, friends( he semed to have known everyone including Tennyson) to keep it balanced and give a good feel of Mr. Lear.
Edward Lear Biography
12 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was well-written and fascinating reading about the life of Edward Lear. It was a great help for me when I wrote a paper for a university literature course about Lear's writing as a reflection of his life.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
