"Children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land." W.H. Auden Edward Lear - beloved nonsense poet, author of such adored poems as The Owl and the Pussycat, inventor of otherworldly characters like Quangle Wangles and of the modern limerick; lauded artist and illustrator - was a genius who defies classification. Gregarious and popular, Lear had a wide circle of friends, but was often lonely and subject to frequent bouts of depression and debilitating epilepsy, the shame of which he struggled with all his life. In this captivating biography, fellow poet Peter Levi renders descriptions of Lear's sketches and watercolours (of which he painted some 10,000 in the course of his career) and provides incisive portraits of his classic poems, such as 'The Jumblies', 'The Owl and the Pussycat' and 'The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo', setting them in the wider context of traditional nursery rhymes. Lear belonged to the great tradition of adventurous British travellers, undertaking extensive journeys in Italy and Greece, in Albania, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine and India and these always-eventful journeys are related here, alongside extracts and quotations from his letters and diaries - an essential biography for all lovers of this remarkable British literary figure and now recognised as one of the greatest nineteenth-century landscape painters.

List of Illustrations 'How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear' Foreword by Robin Hanbury-Tenison INTRODUCTION One BOYHOOD Two THE PAINTER OF BIRDS Three THE LITHOGRAPHER Four INTIMATE INTERLUDES Five ITALY Six SOUTHERN ITALY Seven A TASTE OF GREEK LANDS Eight LEAR AT FORTY Nine CORFU Ten THE DEATH OF ANN Eleven GREECE Twelve CRETE Thirteen SUCCESS Fourteen THE HOUSE AT SAN REMO FIfteen TO SEA IN A SIEVE Sixteen INDIA Seventeen THE FALL OF A HOUSE OF CARDS Eighteen THE VILLA TENNYSON Nineteen THE DEATH OF EDWARD Appendix A: The plants in Lear's garden Appendix B: Children of Jeremiah Lear and Ann Skerritt Notes and References Bibliography