A Book of Nonsense

illustrator Edward Lear (Greater London, 1812 - 1888, San Remo)

author Edward Lear (Greater London, 1812 - 1888, San Remo)

engraver Edward Dalziel (Wooler, 1817 - 1905, Hampstead)

engraver George Dalziel (Wooler, 1815 - 1902, London)

publisher Frederick Warne and Co. (British, 1800 - 1870)

Dateabout 1870

Place MadeEngland, Europe

MediumPrinted ink on paper

Dimensions27 x 23.5 x 3 cm (10 5/8 x 9 1/4 x 1 3/16 in.)

ClassificationsBooks

Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Accession number8.a.3.5

eMuseum ID729480

EmbARK ObjectID22320

TMS Source ID8038

Last Updated8/9/24

Description[2], 111 leaves. : ill. ; 14 x 23 cm.

Status

Not on view

Web Commentary

This book is full of illustrated limericks, or humorous short poems. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s friend, the composer Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867-1962), set many of these poems to music. The New England Magazine considered Lang’s adaptation of Lear’s poetry to be “the essence of refined wit, the best that America has ever produced in music.”

BibliographyNotesSusan Sinclair and Philip B. Eppard. Catalogue of Children’s Books from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Collection and the Personal Libraries of John Lowell and Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston, 1988), p. 22, no. 21.

ProvenanceNotesEntered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection at an unknown date.