About this item
A sparkling biography of the poet and artist Edward Lear by the award-winning biographer Jenny UglowWe know Edward Lear as a genius of nonsense, full of shocks and surprises, and as a poet of strange loves -- "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," "The Dong with a Luminous Nose." We may know him, too, for his paintings of parrots and owls, or for his luminous landscapes. But do we know that he taught Queen Victoria to draw, traveled alone across the wild Albanian mountains, and waded through muddy fields with Tennyson?Lear lived all his life on the borders of rules and structures, of disciplines and desires. Children adored him and adults loved him, yet somehow he was always alone. In this beautiful volume, a fresh and joyful appreciation by the award-winning and compulsively readable Jenny Uglow, we follow Lear from his troubled childhood to his striving as an artist, tracking his swooping moods, passionate friendships, and restless travels. And, as we travel with him, his "nonsenses" are elegantly unpicked -- without losing any of their fun.
About the Author
Jennifer Sheila Uglow OBE (née Crowther, born 1947) is a British biographer, critic and publisher. The editorial director of Chatto & Windus, she has written critically acclaimed biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth, Thomas Bewick and the Lunar Society, among others, and has also compiled a women's biographical dictionary.
