Lear was born into a middle-class family in Highgate, the 20th child of Ann
and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21
years his senior. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four
he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. He
started work as a serious illustrator and his first publication, published
when he was 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots
in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favourably compared
with Audubon. Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a
lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson's poems; near the end of his life a
volume with a small number of illustrations was published, but his vision
for the work was never realized. Lear briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen
Victoria, leading to some awkward incidents when he failed to observe proper
court protocol
Largely self-educated, idiosyncratically if brilliantly talented, Lear was
not a healthy man. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal
epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial
blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with
his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt
and shame for his epileptic condition. His adult diaries indicate that he
always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public
view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people
with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears or an "aura" before the onset
of a seizure. In Lear's time epilepsy was believed to be associated with
demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and
loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression,
possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood. He suffered from
periods of severe depression which he referred to as "the Morbids."
In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went
through three editions and helped popularize the form. In 1865 The History
of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple was published, and in 1867
his most famous piece of nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote
for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many
other works followed.
Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour
circulated that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true
author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl
of Derby. Supporters of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both
men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl".
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org |
