Routledge. - A Book of Nonsense

A Book of NonsenseSurely the most beneficent and innocent of all books yet produced is theBook of Nonsense, with its corollary carols, inimitable and refreshing, and perfect in rhythm. I really dont know any author to whom I am half so grateful for my idle self as Edward Lear. I shall put him first of my hundred authors.John RuskinA magic song-writer, with something like a reverence for the absurd.The Times Literary Supplement Edward Lear A Book of Nonsense First trade edition published 1861 by Routledge, Warne & Routledge First published in Routledge Classics 2002 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York NY 100017 (8th Floor) Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition 2002 Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 10:0-415-28599-2 (hbk)	ISBN 13:978-0-415-28599-5 (hbk)
ISBN 10:0-415-28600-X (pbk)	ISBN 13:978-0-415-28600-8 (pbk)

PUBLISHERS NOTE The arrangement whereby Routledge became the publishers of The Book of Nonsense is summarized below in an extract from The Brothers Dalziel: A Record of Fifty Years Work in Conjunction with Many of the Most Distinguished Artists of the Period 18401890 (Methuen, London 1901). Early in the Sixties we made the acquaintance of Edward Lear, who was a landscape painter of great distinction, a naturalist, a man of high culture, and a most kind and courteous gentleman.

He came to us bringing a original chromo-lithographic copy of his Book of Nonsensepublished some years before by McLean of the Haymarket. His desire was to publish a new and cheaper edition. With this view he proposed having the entire set of designs redrawn on wood, and he commissioned us to do this, also to engrave the blocks, print, and produce the book for him. When the work was nearly completed, he said he would sell his rights in the production to us for 100. We did not accept his offer, but proposed to find a publisher who would undertake it. We laid the matter before Messrs.

Routledge & Warne. They declined to buy, but were willing to publish it for him on commission, which they did. The first edition sold immediately. Messrs. Routledge then wished to purchase the copyright, but Mr. Lear said, Now it is a success they must pay me more than I asked at first.

The price was then fixed at 120, a very modest advance considering the mark the book had made. It has since gone through many editions in the hands of F. Warne & Co. Lear told us how The Book of Nonsense originated. When a young man he studied very much at the Zoological Gardens in Regents Park. While he was engaged on an elaborate drawing of some Parrots, a middle-aged gentleman used to come very frequently and talk to him about his work, and by degrees took more and more interest in him.

One day he said, I wish you to come on a visit to me, for I have much that I think would interest you. The stranger was the Earl of Derby. Lear accepted the invitation, and it was during his many visits at Knowsley that these Nonsense drawings were made, and the inimitable verses written. They were generally done in the evening to please the Earls young children, and caused so much delightful amusement that he redrew them on stone, and published them as before stated. That is how this clever, humorous book came into existence; a work that will cause laughter and pleasure to young and old for all time. Percy Muir, in his Victorian Illustrated Books (Batsford, 1971), offers some amendments to this: it was not a chromo-lithograph original that Lear brought to Dalziels, but the black-and-white original edition of 1846.

He also added 45 new limericks, which brought the number up to 112 wonderful value for the 3 s 6d that Routledge charged for the new edition. EA. Mumby records, in The House of Routledge 18341934 (George Routledge & Sons, 1934), the agreement with Lear that was bound in the Routledge Registers: Memorandum of an agreement entered into this fifth day of November [1861] between Edward Lear, Esq. On the one part and Routledge, Warne & Routledge on the other Messrs. Routledge, Warne & Routledge agree to purchase from Edward Lear, Esq., a work entitled The Book of Nonsense at the rate of 2/6d per copy, 13 as 12 less 15%Accounts to be rendered the 15th of January and the 15th of July in each year. This edition, from which the pages have been reproduced for the Routledge Classics edition, is the fifth published by Routledge, Warne & Routledge in 1862.

Frederick Warne, who had been recruited by George Routledge, his brother-in-law, to be a partner in his publishing house, set up independently in 1865, and subsequently took over publication of the work, though new large-format childrens editions appeared as part of Routledges Stuwwelpeter Series later in the century This current edition therefore restores to the house of Routledge a book that it has not published since the late nineteenth century. Roger Thorp There was an Old Man with a beard, who said, It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard! There was a Young Lady of Ryde, whose shoe-strings were seldom untied; She purchased some clogs, and some small spotty dogs, And frequently walked about Ryde. There was an Old Man with a nose, who said, If you choose to suppose, That my nose is too long, you are certainly wrong! That remarkable Man with a nose. There was an Old Man on a hill, who seldom, if ever, stood still; He ran up and down, in his Grandmothers gown, Which adorned that Old Man on a hill. There was a Young Lady whose bonnet, came untied when the birds sate upon it; But she said, I dont care! all the birds in the air Are welcome to sit on my bonnet! 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 Person of Chili, whose conduct was painful and silly; He sate on the stairs, eating apples and pears, That imprudent Old Person of Chili.

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