A fun read and complete nonsense :)

There was a Young Lady whose nose,
Was so long that it reached to her toes;
So she hired an Old Lady,
Whose conduct was steady,
To carry that wonderful nose.

Πάντα ήθελα να διαβάσω ένα βιβλίο με limericks (σύντομα σατυρικά ποιήματα πέντε στροφών). Ο Edward Lear (1812-1888) ήταν Άγγλος ποιητής και σκιτσογράφος, και ο πρώτος που καθιέρωσε αυτή τη μορφή ποιημάτων, τα οποία ήταν τρομερά δημοφιλή στην εποχή του. Όπως λέει και ο τίτλος, τα ποιηματάκια αυτά δεν βγάζουν κανένα απολύτως νόημα, και σίγουρα θα μου φαίνονταν πολύ πιό αστεία αν άκουγα να τα απαγγέλλει ένα χειμωνιάτικο βράδυ δίπλα απ' το τζάκι κάποιος μεθυσμένος εγγλέζος αριστοκράτης, μετά από ένα καλό κυνήγι φασιανού κι ένα γερό φαγοπότι. Διαβάζοντας τα μέρα μεσημέρι, ξεμέθυστη και μέσα στο λιοπύρι, δυστυχώς έχασαν μεγάλο μέρος από τη γοητεία τους.

Took away 2 stars because contrary to the title of the book, some verses actually made sense!

A quick free read for Kindle from Amazon. A break from the chunksters I've been reading (The Bee Sting and The Whalebone Theatre) Lear's the king of Limericks!

“There was an Old Person whose habits,
Induced him to feed upon Rabbits;
When he'd eaten eighteen,
He turned perfectly green,
Upon which he relinquished those habits.”

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.

"Far and few, far and few/ Are the lands where the Jumblies live/ Their hands are green and their heads are blue/

And they went to sea in a sieve."

Probably wrong a bit here and there, but it's what I remember. I believe an intelligent, educated, wry mind works this way on opium.

"And when the sieve went round and round/ And everyone shouted, 'You'll all be drowned!' ... "

Well, it's for you to pick this gem of a book up and read it. A pleasurable diversion from serious stuff - unless you're a nihilist and consequently will find great meaning here.

It is always fun to read Lear.

The Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear,
the book is short, the end is near;
for whatever it lasts, it's bursts of blasts,
that puny pun-ny book by Edward Lear.

fabulous.

First off 112 of these in one book was way to many. Not really funny. Pictures were racist Caricature. The style of writing was old and would not be understood by kids today. And Shame he used the word, Ass. Just kidding that part was fine.

I grew up reading A Book of Nonsense, which left me with a permanent weakness for limericks. (It's possible that there were other side-effects too). Here's my favourite Lear:

There was an old man of Thermopylae
Who never did anything properly
But they said, if you choose
To boil eggs in your shoes
You will never remain in Thermopylae!

I'm afraid I kept thinking of this all the way through 300, which did rather take the edge off it. Though to be honest, the art of the limerick has advanced significantly since Lear's pioneering efforts - a major breakthrough was realising that the first and last lines didn't have to end with the same word. Some more favourites:

There was a young fellow named Tate
Who dined with his girl, at 8.08
But I'd hate to relate
What that fellow named Tate
And his tête-à-tête ate at 8.08.

She frowned and called him Mr.
Because he boldly Kr.
And so in spite
That very night
That Mr. Kr. Sr.

(Non-Brits may have trouble with the next example)

There was a young curate from Salisbury
Whose manners were quite halisbury-scalisbury
Once morning in Hampshire
He took off his pampshire
Though his vicar had told him to walisbury

Last and, in a certain sense, least, I only discovered the following sequence of minimalist limericks very recently. I'm surprised it isn't more famous! First:

There was a young lady of Crewe
Whose limericks stopped at line two

Having read that, you'll hopefully appreciate the logical continuation:

There was a young man of Verdun

And then, of course there's the third one. It appears that limerick technology is still advancing...

n  There was an Old Man of Whitehaven,
Who danced a quadrille with a Raven;
But they said, "It's absurd,
To encourage this bird!"
So the smashed that Old Man of Whitehaven.n

I picked this up from the Oxfam Online Second-hand Bookshop when I was looking for some folios to add to our collection. Having found Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense, I noticed this lovely edition of his first published Limericks.

You can't help but smile as you read them and you linger on the page, soaking up the illustrations which bring the amusing scenarios to life. I am even more looking forward to reading the Folio now. 4 stars.