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Mr Lear Jenny Uglow

Mr Lear By Jenny Uglow

Mr Lear by Jenny Uglow


£3.80
New RRP £25.00
Condition - Very Good
8 in stock

Summary

Where do these human-like animals and birds and these odd adventures - some gentle, some violent, some musical, some wild - come from? In this book the author's many drawings that accompany his verse are almost hyper-real, as if he wants to free the creatures from the page. It depended on patrons and moved in establishment circles.

Mr Lear Summary

Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense by Jenny Uglow

Acclaimed historian Jenny Uglow brings us a fascinating and beautifully illustrated biography of Edward Lear, full of the colour of the age. Edward Lear lived a vivid, fascinating, energetic life, but confessed, 'I hardly enjoy any one thing on earth while it is present.' He was a man in a hurry, 'running about on railroads' from London to country estates and boarding steamships to Italy, Corfu, India and Palestine. He is still loved for his 'nonsenses', from startling, joyous limericks to great love songs like 'The Owl and the Pussy Cat' and 'The Dong with a Luminous Nose', and he is famous, too, for his brilliant natural history paintings, landscapes and travel writing. But although Lear belongs solidly in the age of Darwin and Dickens - he gave Queen Victoria drawing lessons, and his many friends included Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelite painters - his genius for the absurd and his dazzling word-play make him a very modern spirit. He speaks to us today. Lear was a man of great simplicity and charm: children adored him, yet his humour masked epilepsy, depression and loneliness. Jenny Uglow's beautifully illustrated biography, full of the colour of the age, brings us his swooping moods, passionate friendships and restless travels/ Above all it shows how this uniquely gifted man lived all his life on the boundaries of rules and structures, disciplines and desires - an exile of the heart.

About Jenny Uglow

Jenny Uglow 's books include prize-winning biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth and Sarah Losh. The Lunar Men, published in 2002, was described by Richard Holmes as 'an extraordinarily gripping account', while Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick, won the National Arts Writers Award and A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Her most recent book is In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815. She lives in Canterbury.

Additional information

GOR008761322
9780571269549
0571269540
Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense by Jenny Uglow
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Faber & Faber
2017-10-05
608
Long-listed for Baillie Gifford Prize 2017
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Mr Lear