Mr. Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense by Jenny Uglow (review)

Jenny Uglow's biography of Edward Lear is a delightful and illuminating account of his works and life. Based on extensive research, Uglow's narrative guides readers on a journey from Lear's birth in London, through his time with his sister Ann on the Gray's Inn Road and his travels throughout Europe and Northern Africa, to his death in San Remo in January 1888. Uglow concludes that "Wherever he traveled, Lear stayed a Londoner" (28). Readers gain an intimacy with one of England's best nonsense poets and artists by reading this work that explores his passions: painting (landscapes and birds mostly), traveling, and entertaining.

Uglow adeptly traces themes that continue throughout Lear's life as reflected in his paintings and writings. From his birth on 12 May 1812 to a nonconformist family in Cheapside, Lear spent his life pendulating between longing to fit in and desiring to escape. The first few chapters of this thorough volume explain how Lear was inspired as a teen by the public's fascination with wild animals and spent his visits to Regent's Park at the London Zoo, learning to sketch birds. His contributions to The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society Delineated include wood engravings of "a lemur and his favourite blue-and-yellow maccaws" (48). He also published other books of art, described in detail in this biography. Lear's Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots introduces the theme of observation that permeates his nonsense work. In his illustration of the red and yellow maccaw, "It is hard to tell who is the observer, artist or bird" (50). The idea of who is watching (and judging) whom is pervasive throughout Lear's nonsense and, it seems, his life. Uglow situates him within a list of impressive contemporaries, including Darwin, Dickens, Holman Hunt, and Tennyson, even explaining how Lear "came to know the Bonaparte family well, staying with them in their villa in the country" (117). Regardless, Lear continued to see himself as an outsider.

Uglow shares details of Lear's life that influenced his creative works and highlights the beliefs he shared in his diaries. She credits "Lear's epilepsy, and the secrecy with which he guarded it" as the "root of the profound loneliness he felt all his life" (18). There are references within his diaries that suggest he may have experienced some sort of abuse "which he related to his own difficulties with relationships and sex" (21), and Uglow writes that "Lear was consistently evasive about his sex life, even in his diary" (64). Uglow states that while traveling through Greece, "Lear had fallen in love with" Frank Lushington, but in 1861, feeling that he was boring Lushington, Lear left, writing in his diary that "it is best as it is. For a fanatical-frantic caring overmuch for those who care little for us, is a miserable folly" (344). It was to Lushington that Lear wrote his final letter on 6 January 1888 and had transcribed his final message just before his death. Uglow delves into details from Lear's diaries throughout the book and provides insights into his close relationships such as those with his sister Ann and his friend Emily Tennyson.

Lear's travels are detailed through Albania, Corfu, Greece, Egypt, France, and Italy, and although he returned to England often, his desire to see new landscapes and his curiosity about the world drove him away repeatedly. Uglow links this to his love of birds: "Birds gave Lear joy all his life, not in cages but in the freedom of the skies, lakes and rivers, forests and gardens" (55). This joy is reflected repeatedly throughout Lear's limericks, in which he often criticized British society, including "the greed of the glutton" (94), snobbery, and religious zealotry. While Uglow points out that Lear "turned his back on politics," she also reveals some of the underlying racist attitudes he possessed that are more likely to illicit disdain from a contemporary reader...