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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Edward Lear
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(1812–88) Painter and nonsense author. His first career was as an ornithological artist. His large coloured images of parrots were published in 1832, when he was only 20, and in that same year he was first employed by the 13th earl of Derby to draw his menagerie at Knowsley. It was to amuse the earl's grandchildren that Lear began to write nonsense verse. A Book of Nonsense appeared in 1846, consisting entirely of limericks illustrated with Lear's own distinctive drawings.
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Nonsense Songs (1871) introduced the longer type of poem for which he is best known – 'The *Owl and the Pussy-Cat' in this volume, and 'The *Dong with a Luminous Nose' and 'The *Pobble who has no Toes' in Laughable Lyrics (1877). In about 1835 his interest as a painter turned to landscape, usually in watercolour, and for the rest of his life he travelled widely round the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, painting topographical views in a bold and often bright range of colours.
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