My favourite limericks:

There was a young person of Smyrna,
Whose grandmother threatened to burn her;
But she seized on the cat,
And said, “Granny, burn that!
"You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!”

There was an old lady of Chertsey,
Who made a remarkable curtsey;
She twirled round and round,
Till she sunk underground,
Which distressed all the people of Chertsey.

This is a collection of over one-hundred limericks by Edward Lear published in 1846. Limericks are a popular five-line poetic form with an A – A – B – B – A rhyme scheme, and in which the B-lines are shorter than the A-lines. Two types of material leap to mind when one thinks of limericks: humor and bawdiness. I mention this because neither of these subjects feature prominently in Lear’s limericks. While a number of the poems could be described as amusing, I can’t say I found any of them laugh-out-loud funny. I suspect that the number that are found amusing would be larger for a reader from the early 19th century due to insider knowledge that escapes the present-day reader (i.e. the activities and the perception of people from various locales have changed considerably over the years.)

As the book’s title suggests, what is on display in these limericks is nonsense. While that reads like an insult, Lear is considered to be one of the founders of the genre of literary nonsense. It’s not nonsense in the sense of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” in which fictitious words are blended with real words to create a synthesis that is grammatically logical but relies on the reader’s imagination to create any meaning. Rather, the events and reactions on display in the poems range from absurd to impossible, but the meaning can be interpreted. As with the poems of a later nonsense poet of renown, Ogden Nash, some of the whimsy of these poems derives from contortionistic acts of mispronunciation needed to square the rhyme (though I may be overstating this as I don’t know how much Lear’s British accent from almost 200 years ago would differ from the way I read with my 2020 American accent.)

Needless, to say this is a really quick read. Most editions are between 30 and 60 pages long, with all the white-space one would expect of a book of five-line poems. If you are interested in Limericks or poetic forms in general, it’s worthwhile to see how Lear writes them. It’s a big help in developing an ear for the flow of the limerick. I found the book to be a pleasant read, though some of the limericks are cleverer than others. Some left me thinking that Lear could have done much more with the poems. Often the last line is a minor variation of the first line, and, thus, neither serves as a punchline nor as a source of new information. That sometimes felt like a missed opportunity. Still, it’s a nice collection of nonsense limericks.

1 of: The Nonsense Poems [Hardcover:]
By: Edward Lear and illustrated by Leslie Brooke
Condition: Used - Good
Sold by: fairandfast1t£0.01



and there was a postcard inside



The word "runcible" was apparently one of Lear's favourite inventions, appearing in several of his works in reference to a number of different objects. source - wiki

Pooh! - this doesn't include any of his limericks so I'll have to search again for those

Ok, so mostly silly, rather than funny....

Hadn't realised that this is a collection: of Lear's own limmericks & other rhymes, but it also is a collection of prose, poems etc by Lewis Carrol, Stuwwelpeter, Baron Munchausen & Gulliver's Travels. They are all illustrated by Lear though and his line drawings are comical and entertaining.

Disturbingly brilliant xD

“A Book of Nonsense ” by Edward Lear
One of the earliest books I was given as a child. It was a school award.
Rather harsh towards certain characters.
“There was a Young Lady of Troy, Whom several large flies did annoy; Some she killed”
“There was an Old Man of Peru, Who watched his wife making a stew; But once by mistake, In a stove she did bake, That unfortunate Man of Peru.”

Does exactly what it says on the tin or, in this case, on the book cover. This is a book of limericks that will either make you laugh, or groan in despair.

i luv u edward but these limericks are just nonsenically BAD ahhaha

Edward Lear's limericks make me feel slightly mad... but in the most wonderful way possible!

Published by some outfit called Feather Trail Press, with no introduction or notes about the edition, not even a publishing city noted, left me with little confidence that this edition of Mr. Lear's book is at all representative of his original work--I simply don't know. What I do know is that the centre alignment of the poems and the sans-serif font made the whole thing feel rather amateurish.

I just don't think limericks are for me.

Nonsense Botany :D