Blah, this was such a great disappointment overall. I will admit that there were a couple of things I enjoyed, but this book is VERY long and most of it was not very good, IMO. The part I did like was his section about riding horses with drawings; it helped that what he wrote was typed as text, but when I searched online to find a good photo I couldn't find the ones I liked better. It helps that I grew up in a rural area where some people had horses so I've actually been on them, even if it was with western saddles and not British like the ones in his drawings.

This book was full of stories, letters, poetry and other sorts of writing, including far too many limericks where he never once found three words that rhymed which usually makes them worse.

There once was a poet named Lear
Whose limericks all made me sneer
He set them up wrong
All his life long
They were worse that this one I wrote here.

Had I not been reading this for several challenges, one of which would penalize me if I didn't finish this book, I'd have dropped this early on. I realize that it's very hard to come up with good limericks, but honestly why print them if they aren't good? Thankfully the majority of the book wasn't limericks, but at times it sure felt like it.

Lear painted well, and could draw well, but I did NOT like his cartooning at all. Even the horse ones, but of course the jokes all worked well for me. Most of this book is text, but there are some small renditions of cartoons as well.

I bow to my 19th century mentor. 4 of his characters kindly visited the pages of my story, RAKARA.

'the owl and the pussycat' will always be a favorite. you can probably skip the limericks; although they were made popular by lear, his re-use of the first line as the last line keeps the nonsense from becoming clever.

The compilers of this book have done their upmost to include every scrap of Lear’s written work (and some of his cartoons). As such, while most of this book is wonderful and whimsical as you’d expect from Lear, there’s some rubbish in here too. It is nice to have it all, though.

There are extensive notes in the appendices, which should satisfy Lear scholars. I can’t help but think the man himself would be horrified to see his work dissected and pored over microscopically like this, though.

The worst anthology of poetry i have ever read. Clearly a modern writer and illustrator pretending to be a writer from the past.

If your children have a taste for macabre, buy it for them and read it together and draw it. See if you can out-wild and out-silly the author.

Lear's best poems are good; the problem is that there are so few of them among all the work he produced.

A fun read from everyones childhood although not recommended to be read in large bites.

I understand that these rhymes and stories are significant because they broke the mold and essentially created a new form. However it's hard to get past the fact that they are just not very good. The limericks lack the punch lines that we are used to today, so really all that can be said of them is that they rhyme. I understand that they are supposed to be nonsense, and certainly they are that, but I expected to be more amused. I guess I will stick to Alligator Pie.

Very cute

a book to return to again and again....always a smile

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough."
-"The Self-portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense"

Yes, how pleasant to know Mr. Lear, indeed! This collection contains the poems that made Edward Lear famous, which are complete and utter nonsense, as he himself praises. Truly, this stuff makes absolutely zero sense. It is Victorian gobbledygook at its finest, although I fail to think of anybody else that does what Lear does in such a ridiculous manner. Even by today's standards, it's weird. But you know what? Lear praised himself on being weird, and that is a great quality. So the poems themselves are therefore of equal quality in my mind. Honestly, I cannot even imagine how the man came up with this stuff, but regardless, it's great nursery-rhyme material, because all nursery rhymes are gobbledygook!

As a final note, I bet a million dollars that Edward Lear's favorite color was "pea-green".