List of Illustrations; How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear; 1. Boyhood; 2. The Painter of Birds; 3. The Lithographer; 4. Intimate Interludes; 5. Italy; 6. Southern Italy; 7. A Taste of Greek Lands; 8. Lear at Forty; 9. Corfu; 10. The Death of Ann; 11. Greece; 12. Crete; 13. Success; 14. The House at San Remo; 15. To Sea in a Sieve; 16. India; 17. The Fall of a House of Cards; 18. The Villa Tennyson; 19. The Death of Edward; Appendix A; Appendix B; Notes and References; Bibliography; Index
""Children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land."" W.H. AudenEdward 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
