Nonsense Verses

Edward Lear invented a kind of joy that has no other name. In these verses, birds marry turtles, Jumblies sail in sieves, and an owl elopes with a cat to eat honey in a land where the bong-tree grows. Nothing makes sense, and that is precisely the point. This collection gathers the best of Lear's luminous nonsense: "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" in its entirety, plus "The Dong with the Luminous Nose," "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo," "The Duck and the Kangaroo," and dozens of limericks that twist English into delightful shapes. Lear's genius lies in his total commitment to the absurd, his perfect comic timing, and his strange, tender heart hidden beneath the wordplay. These verses still work their magic more than a century later. They are for anyone who has ever wanted to sail away from sensible things, who finds comfort in the nonsensical, who knows that sometimes the only wise response to the world is pure, unrepentant silliness.