The inventor of the limerick. In fact, his limericks are disappointing, not because they're rated G (they are), but because the last line is always a repeat of the first line. The one about the girl from Nantucket gives you a punch line instead of repeat. A little more vim that way.

Best known for The Owl and The PussyCat, Lear is at his best when he is that rarest of things, funny and sad at the same time. The Jumblies, The Dong with the Luminous Nose, The Pelican Chorus, are all heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time they are goofy childish fun.

Unlike Dr Seuss, who is superficially delightful but brutal to read night after night to cribsfulls of rabid infants, Lear remains fun to read. There's something lovely about a group of 2-5 year olds chanting along:
Far and few, far and few
Are the lands where the Jumblies live
Their heads are green, their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

Highly recommended.

An update to this review:
I should mention, there is a lot of stuff in here that is not terribly interesting. A few of the limericks go a long way, and there's a lot of cutesy stuff that maybe worked 130 years ago in England that just seems like drivel now. The way to read this is to find the ballads, which are terrific.

I read this book every night to my son. We both love it.

Edward Lear could do things with the English language that most of us can only dream of. His legacy, in the form of his nonsense rhymes and poems, is one that the English speaking world should treasure forever.

Very complete. Sketches by Lear are included along with his verse and alphabets, etc.

So much fun for anyone of any age.

Excellent

Magnificent and very silly. The early poems are weak. This is because Lear hadn't yet found his true path in life. Gradually the poems become dafter and dafter and better and better. The limericks aren't so great individually but there are so many of them that they build up into a strange unstoppable gestalt force of utterly pointless fun. His best work tends to be his longer nonsense songs, 'The Owl and the Puss-Cat', obviously, and 'The Jumblies', 'Mr and Mrs Discobobolos', etc. But I was also very impressed with his prose story about the children who sailed round the world. Extremely inventive and blatantly ridiculous.

alpha - I've come across some of Lear's illustrations in other books. I think I wanted more chaos & insanity, but this is more like nursery rhymes. Not bad, but not what I'm after.

Brilliantly nonsensical poetry - loved Lear's work as a child with the Owl and the Pussy cat - loved going back to look more closely at the meaning behind the nonsense

Delightful and comprehensive, best read in small doses so as not to ruin with excess the fun, this anthology of Lear illustrated poems, limericks, letters, alphabets, strange botanies, and other entertainments by the naturalist, landscape artist, and inspired traveler is a treat for the ages.

Many of us got our first introduction to poetry through Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat and can likely recite the beginning verse, if not more. There are also The Jumblies (“They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, / In a Sieve they went to sea: / In spite of all their friends could say, / In a Sieve they went to sea!”), “The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple,” The Scroobious Pip, The Dong with a Luminous Nose, and more stories and poems, light and dark, filled with puns and nonsense words, and strange places and stranger characters, sometimes including a certain Mr. Lear himself.

Lear is great, as they say, for children of all ages, including this sixty-five year old toddler.

Had this book as a child aged about 8. Loved it. Would read it again and again. I can still remember some of the lines from certain poems like the Jumblies. My edition had beautiful illustrations too.

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Oh this book! This book holds great sentimental value to me because my family has been reading it for four generations. I read it to Logan, my dad read it to my siblings and I, my grandfather read it to my dad, and my great-grandfather dad read it to my grandfather. The pure silliness is just fabulous! It is especially great considering that children's literature was not a big genera like it is today. I would have loved to meet Leer because he is so crazy and imaginative. I can only imagine what a talk with him would be like!