An English artist and humorist, Edward Lear was once drawing master to Queen Victoria. He was a painter of birds and landscapes and author of some sketches in pen line and washes of water color which were exhibited. His illustrated limericks and poems in A Book of Nonsense (1846), Nonsense Songs and Stories (1871), and other works have given him fame. Lear jests at sense and pathos in lyrics which attain at times a fantastic gaiety. A traveler, he wrote several illustrated journals of his journeys.
Bibliography:
The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., c. 1960.
