A BOOK OF NONSENSE
The rare third edition, expanded and revised — the so-called first "trade" edition, the first by a major publisher and first to be issued under his own name.
Very good.
Price: $25,000.00
A BOOK OF NONSENSE
"Lear's nonsense is comprehensible as both the foolery of childhood and the foolery of carnival, turning the world upside down" — Jenny Uglow
Painter of birds, landscape artist, drawing tutor to Queen Victoria, Edward Lear was a talented and versatile artist. While he didn't invent the limerick form, his self-financed A BOOK OF NONSENSE established it decisively outside its traditional oral form, inaugurating "the arrival of a new literary genre" (Schiller, v). His limericks were funny, surprising, and a bit naughty. Lear's unapologetic embrace of the absurd was an important moment in the growing acceptance that children preferred simply fun reading material over the simply didactic, a philosophy that has led to some of the best children's books since: ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendak, WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS by Shel Silverstein, and more.
This third edition was the one that brought the book into the mainstream: the first edition "did not have an auspicious launch and initially received very little notice. It was only with the third edition [...] that it leapt to national celebrity" (Loker, #32 in Grolier 100). This was the first Lear published with a major publisher, Routledge, and the first issued as "Edward Lear" rather than his pen name, "Derry Down Derry." Lear added 43 new limericks to this edition and removed three, bringing the total number of limericks to 113 (including the title limerick). It is a known rarity in the trade; we trace only ten copies at institutions in varying states of completeness (Morgan, Houghton, Princeton, the British Library, the Lilly, the Ransom, Florida State, Yale, and UVA [2 copies]).
Read more: Morgan Library, Early Children's Books and Their Illustration; Loker, One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature (Grolier); Schiller, Nonsensus; Uglow, Mr. Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense; Carter, "Gutta-Percha (or Caoutchouc) Binding,"ABC for Book Collectors.
The Object
London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, (1862). 5.5'' x 8.5''. Original red cloth-backed printed paper boards. Illustrated with 113 wood engravings by the Brothers Dalziel after Lear (including title page). Faint contemporary ink inscription on front board; bookplate of Justin Schiller to front pastedown; pencil name to dedication leaf. Hinges non-archivally repaired, corners worn, boards somewhat rubbed. Foxing to endpapers and only a few leaves. Firm. Housed in custom quarter red morocco clamshell box.
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