Lear
was an
...artist, traveller, and
writer … He worked as a zoological draughtsman until he
came under the patronage of the earl of Derby, for whose
grandchildren he wrote A Book of Nonsense (1845), with
his own limericks and illustrations. … as a writer he is
remembered for his nonsense verses, with their linguistic
fantasies and inventiveness and their occasional touches of
underlying melancholy; Lear suffered from epilepsy and
depression, and despite many close friends (including
Tennyson's wife Emily) from loneliness. Later nonsense
volumes were Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets
(1871), which contains 'The Owl and the Pussycat' and 'The
Jumblies'; More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany etc.
(1871); and Laughable Lyrics (1877), with the Dong,
the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, and the Pobble who has no toes.
(source: The Oxford Companion to English Literature (5th edition), 1985, ed. Margaret Drabble)
