Edward Lear, British (1812 - 1888)

Edward Lear was an English humorist and artist. At 19 he was employed as a draftsman by the London Zoological Society; the paintings of birds that he produced for The Family of the Psittacidae (1832) were among the first color plates of animals ever published in Great Britain.

Lear is best known for his illustrated limericks and nonsense verse, which were collected in A Book of Nonsense (1846), Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871), containing “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat,” and Laughable Lyrics (1877). He wrote several illustrated journals of his travels through Southern Europe. He is best known for popularizing the limerick. Epileptic and depressive, Lear left England in 1837 and died in 1888.