I LOVE Edward Lear!

Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of the poet and artist Edward Lear (books by this author), born in London in 1812. He was the 20th of 21 children, about half of whom died in infancy. Lear himself survived to the age of 75, but his health was somewhat fragile. He suffered his first epileptic seizure when he was five years old, and felt a lifelong sense of shame at the affliction, which was poorly understood at that time and often attributed to demonic possession. He was also prone to fits of deep depression, which he dubbed “the Morbids.”

Because of his parents’ financial difficulties, Lear’s older sister, Ann, raised him. She tutored him and taught him to draw and paint. He began selling his drawings when he was 16, and later found work as a drawing teacher, and a sign painter, and an illustrator of medical textbooks. He was hired by the London Zoological Society to produce a series of bird paintings, and he insisted on only painting from live specimens, not stuffed dead birds. His paintings impressed Edward Stanley, the Earl of Derby, so much that Stanley asked Lear to come and document the animals in the private zoo he kept on his estate. Lear lived at Knowsley Hall for four years on and off, working on the paintings, which were eventually published in the book Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall (1846). He also befriended the Earl’s grandchildren and began writing poetry for them, lots of limericks and nonsense verse, including “The Owl and the Pussycat.”