EDWARD LEAR
Edward Lear was born in Highgate, 12 May. He was the twentieth child of Jeremiah
Lear, a London stockbroker, and his wife Ann.
Four years after his birth, Jeremiah fell a defaulter in the Stock Exchange and
the family had to abandon the fashionable life to which they were accustomed.
Edward's upbringing was entrusted to his sister Ann, twenty-one years his senior,
and Mrs Lear had nothing more to do with it. Young Edward certainly resented his
mother's rejection, but found all the love he needed in Ann.
He was first attacked by what he called 'the Demon', epilepsy, when he was five
or six, and a few years later 'the Morbids', sudden changes of mood with bouts
of acute depression, began.
His early education was completely left to Ann and Sarah, another sister: beside
the typical tuition books of the age they read to him classical tales and modern
poetry (the Romantic poets), and taught him to draw, especially natural subjects.
1826
Lear's father retires and as he cannot provide for his children, Edward, who
still lives with Ann, begins to earn his living as an artist.
1830
Starts work on Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in June.
The first two folios are published in November and immediately give him a
reputation as an ornithological draughtsman; he is nominated as an Associate of
the Linnean Society.
1831
Lear interrupts the series about the Psittacidae and begins a collaboration with
John Gould (The Birds of Europe).
In October he wrote in a letter to Charles Empson also containing a sketch of
himself:
This is amazingly like; add only - that both my knees are fractured from being
run over which has made them very peculiarly crooked - that my neck is
singularly long, a most elephantine nose - & a disposition to tumble here &
there - owing to being half blind, & you may very well imagine my tout ensemble.
(Selected Letters, p. 16)
1831 or 1832
Visits Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berne, and Berlin with Gould.
1832
Lear starts drawing the animals in the menagerie of Knowsley Hall for Lord
Stanley.
1835
Travels to Ireland with Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and his son Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley, July-August. His interst turns to landscape painting.
1836
Walking tour in the Lake District, August-October. His eyesight and general
health deteriorate.
1837
Sets out for Rome travelling via Belgium, Luxenburg, Germany, and Switzerland,
July. Reaches Rome, December.
1838
Travels to southern Italy, May-August. Earliest oil painting, June.
1839
Walking tour towards Florence, May-October.
1841
Returns to England, spring. Publication of Views in Rome and its environs.
Visits Scotland, September. Returns to Rome, December.
1842
Visits Sicily, April-May, and the Abruzzi, July-October.
1843
Returns to the Abruzzi, September-October.
1845
Meets Chichester Fortescue, April. Returns to England, May.
1846
Publication of Illustrated Excursions in Italy (2 vols.). Publication of first
edition of A Book of Nonsense, using the pseudonym Derry Down Derry. Publication
of Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Gives a series of
twelve drawing lessons to Queen Victoria. Returns to Rome, December.
1847
Visits Sicily and southern Calabria and witnesses outbursts of revolution, May-October.
1848
Meets Thomas Baring, later Lord Northbrook, February. The state of Italy becomes
more unsettled, and Lear leaves Rome, April. Travels via Malta to Corfu and the
Ionian Islands, April-May. Visits Athens, Marathon, Thermophylae, and Thebes,
where he is taken ill, June-July. Arrives in Costantinople, August. Travels
across Greece and into Albania, September-December. Returns to Malta, and meets
Fraanklin Lushington, December.
1849
Travels to Cairo, Suez, and Sinai, January-February. Returns to Malta, then sets
out for southern Greece with F. Lushington, March. Travels in the Morea and
visits Janina, Vale of Tempe, and Mount Olympus, March-July. Returns to England,
July. Attends Sass's School of Art to prepare drawings for entrance to the Royal
Academy Schools, November-December.
1850
Accepted as a probationer, January, and as a full student, April. First picture
accepted by the Royal Academy. By November he is working on his own again.
1851
Publication of Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania, & c. Meets Alfred and
Emely Tennyson.
1852
Introduced to Holman Hunt, who offers to teach him his own methods of painting,
early summer. Lives with Hunt at Clive Vale, Hastings, and meets other members
of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, July-December. He begins to gain confidence
in oil painting, and conceives the plan of illustrating Tennyson's poems.
Publication of Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria.
1853
Publication of the first of his musical settings of Tennyson's poems. Unable to
cope any longer with the damp Englsh weather, he leaves to spend the winter in
Egypt, December.
1854
Travels up the Nile as far as the first cataract, January-March. Returns to
England, then visits Switzerland, August-October.
1855
Publication of the second edition of A Book of Nonsense. Accompanies Lushington
to Corfu for the winter. Spending most of his time alone, he becomes lonely and
depressed.
1856
Employs Giorgio Cocali, April. Travels via Albania and Greece to Mount Athos and
Troy, August-October.
1857
Visits Albania, April. Returns to London for the summer, May, and to Corfu for
the winter, November.
1858
Travels to Bethlehem, hebron, Petra, the Dead SEa, Jerusalem and Lebanon, March-June.
Returns to England, August. Decides to winter in Rome.
1859
Returns to England in May, and spends most of the summer at St Leonards. Returns
to Rome, December.
1860
To England, May. Begins work on large oil paintings of the Cedars of Lebanon and
Masada at Oatlands Park Hotel, October.
1861
His sister Ann becomes ill, and dies 11 March. Visits Florence, May-August.
Cedars of Lebanon exhibited in Liverpool and receives favourable reviews,
September. Returns to winter again in Corfu, November. Publication of third
edition of A Book of Nonsense under his own name, December.
1862
Cedars of Lebanon exhibited in the Great International Exhibition, March, but
hung very high and not well received. Returns to England, May. leaves England
for Corfu, November. Despite the increasing sales of the last ten years, he now
realizes that his chances of becoming established are diminishing, and he works
on his first group of Tyrants.
1863
Visits the other Ionian Islands, April-May. Returns to England, June.
Publication of Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, December.
1864
Returns to Corfu, January. The island is ceded to the Greeks and he leaves for
Athens and Crete, April. In London, June-November. Decides to winter in southern
France and leaves England. Finds rooms in Nice, November.
1865
Writes the first of his Nonsense stories, The History of the Seven Families of
the Lake Pipple-Popple, February.. Returns to England, April. Lady Waldergrave
commissions a painting of Venice, and he travels there, November. Decides to
winter in Malta, December.
1866
Returns to England, April. contemplates proposing marriage to Gussie Bethell,
November. To Egypt, and travels down the Nile as far as Wadi Halfa, December-March.
1867
Visits Gaza and Jerusalem, then returns to England via Ravenna, June. Leaves to
winter in Cannes, November. Writes the first of his Nonsense songs, The Owl and
the Pussycat, December. The Cedars of Lebanon sold to Louisa, Lady Ashburton for
£200, less than a third of its original price.
1868
Travels in Corsica, May-June, then returns to England until December. Leaves for
Cannes, December.
1869
In Paris, working on plates for his book on Corsica, June-July. In London until
December, when he returns to Cannes. Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica,
the last of his travel books, published December.
1870
Decides to settle, and buys land in San Remo, March. Summer in Certosa del Pesio.
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets published, December.
1871
Moves into Villa Emily, March. More Nonsense published, December.
1872
Spends the summer in England, June-October. Sets out for India, but turns back
at Suez, October. Foss the cat arrives, November.
1873
Leaves for India, October. Arrives Bombay, November.
1874
Travels in India and Ceylon.
1875
Leaves India, January. Summer in England, June-September.
1876
His last Nonsense book, Laughable Lyrics, published December.
1877
England, May-September. Brief visit to Corfu to see Giorgio who is ill,
September.
1878
Summer, Monte Generoso, Switzerland. The land below his house is cleared for
building, October.
1879
Lady Waldergrave dies, July. Summer, Monte Generoso.
1880
Buy new land for building, February. Last visit to England, April-August; Varese,
Monte Generoso, September-October.
1881
Summer on Monte Generoso. Moves into Villa Tennyson, October.
1882
Summer in Monte Generoso.
1883
Summer in Monte Generoso. Giorgio Cocali dies, August.
1884
Villa Emily sold, February. Summer in Recoaro.
1885
Summer in Brianza.
1886
Spends some weeks in bed with bronchitis, January-April. John Ruskin places him
at the head of his list of favourite authors in the Pall Mall Gazette, February.
Makes his final repayment of debt for building Villa Tennyson, March.
1887
Abandons Tennyson-illustrations project as a failure. Foss dies, November.
1888
Dies in San Remo, 29 January.
Edward Lear was born in Highgate, 12 May. He was the twentieth child of Jeremiah
Lear, a London stockbroker, and his wife Ann.
Four years after his birth, Jeremiah fell a defaulter in the Stock Exchange and
the family had to abandon the fashionable life to which they were accustomed.
Edward's upbringing was entrusted to his sister Ann, twenty-one years his senior,
and Mrs Lear had nothing more to do with it. Young Edward certainly resented his
mother's rejection, but found all the love he needed in Ann.
He was first attacked by what he called 'the Demon', epilepsy, when he was five
or six, and a few years later 'the Morbids', sudden changes of mood with bouts
of acute depression, began.
His early education was completely left to Ann and Sarah, another sister: beside
the typical tuition books of the age they read to him classical tales and modern
poetry (the Romantic poets), and taught him to draw, especially natural subjects.
1826
Lear's father retires and as he cannot provide for his children, Edward, who
still lives with Ann, begins to earn his living as an artist.
1830
Starts work on Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in June.
The first two folios are published in November and immediately give him a
reputation as an ornithological draughtsman; he is nominated as an Associate of
the Linnean Society.
1831
Lear interrupts the series about the Psittacidae and begins a collaboration with
John Gould (The Birds of Europe).
In October he wrote in a letter to Charles Empson also containing a sketch of
himself:
This is amazingly like; add only - that both my knees are fractured from being
run over which has made them very peculiarly crooked - that my neck is
singularly long, a most elephantine nose - & a disposition to tumble here &
there - owing to being half blind, & you may very well imagine my tout ensemble.
(Selected Letters, p. 16)
1831 or 1832
Visits Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berne, and Berlin with Gould.
1832
Lear starts drawing the animals in the menagerie of Knowsley Hall for Lord
Stanley.
1835
Travels to Ireland with Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and his son Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley, July-August. His interst turns to landscape painting.
1836
Walking tour in the Lake District, August-October. His eyesight and general
health deteriorate.
1837
Sets out for Rome travelling via Belgium, Luxenburg, Germany, and Switzerland,
July. Reaches Rome, December.
1838
Travels to southern Italy, May-August. Earliest oil painting, June.
1839
Walking tour towards Florence, May-October.
1841
Returns to England, spring. Publication of Views in Rome and its environs.
Visits Scotland, September. Returns to Rome, December.
1842
Visits Sicily, April-May, and the Abruzzi, July-October.
1843
Returns to the Abruzzi, September-October.
1845
Meets Chichester Fortescue, April. Returns to England, May.
1846
Publication of Illustrated Excursions in Italy (2 vols.). Publication of first
edition of A Book of Nonsense, using the pseudonym Derry Down Derry. Publication
of Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Gives a series of
twelve drawing lessons to Queen Victoria. Returns to Rome, December.
1847
Visits Sicily and southern Calabria and witnesses outbursts of revolution, May-October.
1848
Meets Thomas Baring, later Lord Northbrook, February. The state of Italy becomes
more unsettled, and Lear leaves Rome, April. Travels via Malta to Corfu and the
Ionian Islands, April-May. Visits Athens, Marathon, Thermophylae, and Thebes,
where he is taken ill, June-July. Arrives in Costantinople, August. Travels
across Greece and into Albania, September-December. Returns to Malta, and meets
Fraanklin Lushington, December.
1849
Travels to Cairo, Suez, and Sinai, January-February. Returns to Malta, then sets
out for southern Greece with F. Lushington, March. Travels in the Morea and
visits Janina, Vale of Tempe, and Mount Olympus, March-July. Returns to England,
July. Attends Sass's School of Art to prepare drawings for entrance to the Royal
Academy Schools, November-December.
1850
Accepted as a probationer, January, and as a full student, April. First picture
accepted by the Royal Academy. By November he is working on his own again.
1851
Publication of Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania, & c. Meets Alfred and
Emely Tennyson.
1852
Introduced to Holman Hunt, who offers to teach him his own methods of painting,
early summer. Lives with Hunt at Clive Vale, Hastings, and meets other members
of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, July-December. He begins to gain confidence
in oil painting, and conceives the plan of illustrating Tennyson's poems.
Publication of Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria.
1853
Publication of the first of his musical settings of Tennyson's poems. Unable to
cope any longer with the damp Englsh weather, he leaves to spend the winter in
Egypt, December.
1854
Travels up the Nile as far as the first cataract, January-March. Returns to
England, then visits Switzerland, August-October.
1855
Publication of the second edition of A Book of Nonsense. Accompanies Lushington
to Corfu for the winter. Spending most of his time alone, he becomes lonely and
depressed.
1856
Employs Giorgio Cocali, April. Travels via Albania and Greece to Mount Athos and
Troy, August-October.
1857
Visits Albania, April. Returns to London for the summer, May, and to Corfu for
the winter, November.
1858
Travels to Bethlehem, hebron, Petra, the Dead SEa, Jerusalem and Lebanon, March-June.
Returns to England, August. Decides to winter in Rome.
1859
Returns to England in May, and spends most of the summer at St Leonards. Returns
to Rome, December.
1860
To England, May. Begins work on large oil paintings of the Cedars of Lebanon and
Masada at Oatlands Park Hotel, October.
1861
His sister Ann becomes ill, and dies 11 March. Visits Florence, May-August.
Cedars of Lebanon exhibited in Liverpool and receives favourable reviews,
September. Returns to winter again in Corfu, November. Publication of third
edition of A Book of Nonsense under his own name, December.
1862
Cedars of Lebanon exhibited in the Great International Exhibition, March, but
hung very high and not well received. Returns to England, May. leaves England
for Corfu, November. Despite the increasing sales of the last ten years, he now
realizes that his chances of becoming established are diminishing, and he works
on his first group of Tyrants.
1863
Visits the other Ionian Islands, April-May. Returns to England, June.
Publication of Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, December.
1864
Returns to Corfu, January. The island is ceded to the Greeks and he leaves for
Athens and Crete, April. In London, June-November. Decides to winter in southern
France and leaves England. Finds rooms in Nice, November.
1865
Writes the first of his Nonsense stories, The History of the Seven Families of
the Lake Pipple-Popple, February.. Returns to England, April. Lady Waldergrave
commissions a painting of Venice, and he travels there, November. Decides to
winter in Malta, December.
1866
Returns to England, April. contemplates proposing marriage to Gussie Bethell,
November. To Egypt, and travels down the Nile as far as Wadi Halfa, December-March.
1867
Visits Gaza and Jerusalem, then returns to England via Ravenna, June. Leaves to
winter in Cannes, November. Writes the first of his Nonsense songs, The Owl and
the Pussycat, December. The Cedars of Lebanon sold to Louisa, Lady Ashburton for
£200, less than a third of its original price.
1868
Travels in Corsica, May-June, then returns to England until December. Leaves for
Cannes, December.
1869
In Paris, working on plates for his book on Corsica, June-July. In London until
December, when he returns to Cannes. Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica,
the last of his travel books, published December.
1870
Decides to settle, and buys land in San Remo, March. Summer in Certosa del Pesio.
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets published, December.
1871
Moves into Villa Emily, March. More Nonsense published, December.
1872
Spends the summer in England, June-October. Sets out for India, but turns back
at Suez, October. Foss the cat arrives, November.
1873
Leaves for India, October. Arrives Bombay, November.
1874
Travels in India and Ceylon.
1875
Leaves India, January. Summer in England, June-September.
1876
His last Nonsense book, Laughable Lyrics, published December.
1877
England, May-September. Brief visit to Corfu to see Giorgio who is ill,
September.
1878
Summer, Monte Generoso, Switzerland. The land below his house is cleared for
building, October.
1879
Lady Waldergrave dies, July. Summer, Monte Generoso.
1880
Buy new land for building, February. Last visit to England, April-August; Varese,
Monte Generoso, September-October.
1881
Summer on Monte Generoso. Moves into Villa Tennyson, October.
1882
Summer in Monte Generoso.
1883
Summer in Monte Generoso. Giorgio Cocali dies, August.
1884
Villa Emily sold, February. Summer in Recoaro.
1885
Summer in Brianza.
1886
Spends some weeks in bed with bronchitis, January-April. John Ruskin places him
at the head of his list of favourite authors in the Pall Mall Gazette, February.
Makes his final repayment of debt for building Villa Tennyson, March.
1887
Abandons Tennyson-illustrations project as a failure. Foss dies, November.
1888
Dies in San Remo, 29 January.