Edward Lear - Five Edward Lear illustrated Nonsense books - 1870

Five Edward Lear nonsense ill. books:

1 "Nonsense Songs" by Edward Lear and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke - Frederick Warne, London - ca 1900 first thus UK edition - 20cmx15cm - condition: good, in original publisher's binding, minor rubbing, all Brooke plates present, some smudging

2 "Edward Lear's Nonsense Songs" - Chatto & Windus, London - 1940 edition - condition: all ill. present, in dustwrapper with soiling and staining.

3 "A Nonsense Alphabet" by Edward Lear - London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office / Victoria & Albert Museum - 1952 edition - 10cmx15cm - condition: original wrappers, with some wear, all ill. present

4 "Lear's Nonsense Birthday Book" - Frederick Warne, London - 1892 first thus UK edition - 12cmx10cm - condition: original binding, with covers loose, lacking spine cover, ill. present.

5 "Lear's Shilling Book of Nonsense" by Edward Lear - Frederick Warne, London - ca 1870 first thus UK edition - 15cmx20cm - condition: in original binding, worn and covers loose, some wear to edges, with all illustrations. Rare Lear title.

Edward Lear (12 May 1812[1][2] – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised.[3]

His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to make illustrations of birds and animals, making coloured drawings during his journeys (which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books) and as a minor illustrator of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems.

As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry