Nonsense Books

Edward LearProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.1

Word count: 172K words
Chapters: 18

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Nonsense Books by Edward LearAuthor: Lear, Edward, 1812-1888,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Oct 8, 2004

Editor's review

This Nonsense Books is a classic collection of Edward Lear's nonsense verse and drawings, bringing together the poet's most representative nonsense poems and illustrations and revealing a distinctive vein of humor in Victorian English literature. With unfettered imagination, invented words, and deliberately logic-defying rhythms, Lear created a literary pleasure that is at once childlike and ingenious, and his influence on later children's literature and nonsense literature runs deep. The language is plain and rhythmic, and the illustrations and text illuminate each other, making the book suitable as an introduction to English poetry and a way to cultivate a feel for the language. Readers can dip into a few poems over tea or in spare moments and enjoy the light rhythms and sudden shifts of tone, or treat the book as a sampler for studying the English nonsense tradition, the history of children's literature, or the pleasures of translation. The Project Gutenberg electronic text is convenient for searching and comparative reading, but note that its layout and the presentation of illustrations depend on the specific device and edition.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Beginning readers who want an easy way to encounter the rhythms of English poetry
Readers interested in nonsense literature and the children's literature tradition
Teachers who need short pieces for reading aloud or classroom enrichment
Casual readers who enjoy illustrated books to dip into at leisure

Not a good fit for

Readers looking for serious lyric poetry or deeply narrative verse
Academic readers who need systematic literary history and detailed annotation
Readers with little interest in absurd humor and invented words

Reading tips

Read a few poems aloud first to feel the rhythm and rhyme, then go back to the puns and invented words in the text.
Read alongside the illustrations and notice the disjunctions and echoes between image and text.
Read in groups by theme or character and compare the images Lear uses repeatedly.
If the English original is difficult, read a reliable translation for understanding and then return to the original.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners?

It works well as light introductory material. Lear's nonsense poems mostly use short sentences, strong rhythm, and repetition; though some words are invented, the overall rhythm is strong and good for developing a feel for the language. Some archaic usages and puns still require lookups, so it is best read with notes or a translation at hand.

Will the illustrations display properly in the electronic edition?

That depends on your reading device and the file format you download. Project Gutenberg offers several formats; plain-text versions usually contain no illustrations, while EPUB or HTML versions are more likely to preserve the images. For text-image comparison, choose an illustrated format and read on a larger screen.

What difficulties do nonsense poems pose for non-native English readers?

The main difficulties are invented words, sound-based puns, and deliberate logical breaks, which often depend on English phonetics and colloquial background. Non-native readers can first grasp the overall rhythm and plot, then use notes to understand the wordplay, without needing to solve every word.

Comments

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About the author

Edward Lear Author · British · 1812–1888

Edward Lear (1812–1888) was a British artist, illustrator and poet, born in Holloway, London, the youngest of 21 children, and raised by his eldest sister. He made his early living by drawing bird plates, including work for the Earl of Derby's menagerie, and his parrot illustrations were notably precise; he later turned to landscape painting and travelled in Italy, Greece, Egypt and India. He never married and died in San Remo, Italy, in 1888. Lear is best known for his nonsense verse, including A Book of Nonsense, Nonsense Songs, More Nonsense and Laughable Lyrics. Blending absurd imagination, playful rhythm and his own illustrations, his work combines verbal games with strange imagery and has deeply influenced later children's literature and humorous poetry.