It's hard to imagine that there is another reputable author who consistently held himself or herself to as limited an artistic standard as Edward Lear. This volume contains over 100 pages of what we can only call limericks, not one of which is as good as the first poem I found by typing "random limerick" into Google.

But hey -- judge for yourself. Here's a sample from Lear:
"There was an Old Person of Bangor,
Whose face was distorted with anger!
He tore off his boots,
And subsisted on roots,
That irascible Person of Bangor."

Compare this to poem #21 under the heading "Death" in the Wordsworth Book of Limericks:
"A daring young fellow in Bangor
Sneaked a super-swift jet from its hangar.
When he crashed in the bay,
Neighbors laid him away
In rather more sorrow than anger."

If, after carefully considering these poems, you still want to read the present collection, more power to you.

Right! I have no idea, what I feel about this one.

My boys, 7 and 4, love this book. They think the alphabets and botany pictures are hilarious. I love to hear them chortle as we read.

This is a book written by Edward Lear. This book contains his best rhyming works that he ever wrote. He includes all of his original drawings that were intended for each part of his collection of rhymes. Each rhyme was very funny. This book includes song rhymes, rhyming lyrics, stories, and alphabet rhymes. There really isn't a conflict, plot, resolution, or setting. This is basically a book of rhymes. If i was to describe this book in one word I would say that it is nonsensical. My favorite rhyme from this book is "The Old Man with a Nose". It was very funny and the picture went exactly along with the rhyme. This book of rhymes meets the sound characteristic for poems. All of the rhymes in this book rhyme from line to line exactly. An example of this is like in the rhyme "The Old Man with a Beard" the words beard and feared rhyme exactly. Each of these poems bring clear images to the readers mind. As I read each poem in this book the image that appeared in my mind was very close to the ones present with each poem. An example of the is from the poem " The Old Man with a Nose" as you read this poem you think of a man with a nose like an elephant, and that is exactly like the picture that is presented. The poems from this book provide very good insight. Once you read this book you can't say you are not in good spirits. Each poem is funnier than the past one. There is a lot of creative word play used in this book through the poems. There are words that are used in our everyday language that are made to work with the poems. This would be appropriate in the class room when you need to lift the spirits of the students in your classroom. This book will definatly make every student in your classroom laugh. I really enjoyed reading this book. Every poem made me laugh. I really felt like I was in a better mood after reading this book. The one thing that struck me as I read this books was how everything rhymed which made it easier to read and predict what word was going to be used next. Im not really sure how this book would relate to my life besides that this books is very funny much like me.

مثل ماقلت من قبل، أدب التفاهة حاجة غريبه وجميلة وممتعة!
أفكار كثيره عجيبه تُخلط وتتحرك وتخرج بسلاسة وكأنها تحدث كُل يوم.
شخصيات لا تفكر بإمكانية تحويلها لأبطال قصص تجدها ترقص وتسافر في مغامرات طويله لا معنى لها.
حبيت إدورد لير من هالكتاب. حس الفكاهة عنده جداً عالي ومميز.

I thought I remembered Edward Lear's limericks as being funnier than I found in this book. The only poem that I really liked was The Owl and the Pussy-Cat. Very disappointing.

An entertaining and eclectic read. So full of fun and wonder, and most of all "nonsense" ;)

A collection of the nonsense writings of prolific Victorian artist and author Edward Lear. Lear’s wonderful brand of absurdism, his arresting artwork, his skill and playfulness with words, have made him an iconic figure for a host of writers from Eley Williams and John Ashbery to Donald Barthelme, Edward Gorey, and W. H. Auden. Lear’s unique blend of quirk, whimsy and strange melancholy, has been part of my literary landscape since I was really young, and ever since lines and images from his nonsense songs have a tendency to suddenly pop up in my head: the Jumblies with their blue hands and green heads, the vast hat of the Quangle Wangle. But now I’m not so sure Lear’s work’s well suited to child readers, despite his marvellously eccentric alphabets and furiously comical images, there’s a vein of deep, almost unbearable, sadness that surfaces from time to time, as in my favourite song, the haunting tale of longing and thwarted desire “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.” It’s a song so weighed down with intense emotions that I found it difficult to deal with when I first encountered it. Revisiting these as an adult it’s hard not to wonder how much the overwhelming loneliness, the sense of futility that pervades characters like the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo reflects Lear’s own experiences and inner world: almost certainly queer but without a means of embracing that; grappling with long-term illness, and endless money worries. Lear’s most intimate friendship seems to have been with his beloved cat Fop - who features here in a series of beguiling sketches. I still love his work in all its forms, it’s not uniformly great but when it succeeds, I think it’s pure genius.

Victober 2022 Challenge - poetry

Die perfekte Sammlung der Werke von Edward Lear, dem Erfinder des Limerick, wie wir ihn heute kennen. Witzige Verse mit herrlichen Illustrationen. Der englische Wilhelm Busch.

Und das Ganze in einer sehr hochwertigen Ausgabe der Folio Society. Absolut Toll!

A delightful collection of nonsense poetry--for children and for adults. The vocabulary is at a surprisingly high level--after just about every limerick, the girls asked for the definition of at least one word. Light and fun and marvelously absurd.

Well, it is a collection of "complete Nonsense" in true sense, starts with 4 lines verse poems, thoroughly witty and enjoyable. So are the playful writings with alphabets and short stories. You have to savor it slowly with little dose of gibberish thinking, now and then. It is amusing that, there seems to be an impression of Lear's doodles on the works of legendary nonsense poetry writer in Bengali literature, Sukumar Ray.

100 years before Edward Gorey's "Gashlycrumb Tinies" and 125 years before Tim Burton's "Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy," there was Edward Lear's books of complete nonsense. This collection is a great match for those who love the literary nonsense of Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was written around the same time). Whimsical and sometimes a little dark (ie: How to Make Gosky Patties), these rhymes and songs are really fun to read-aloud. If you haven't yet heard The Owl and the Pussycat or The Jumblies, please ask someone to read them to you, post-haste!