Mount Etna, Sicily

1846

“A Book of Nonsense” is published

In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions and helped popularise the form and the genre of literary nonsense.

1846

Two books of 1846: Italy and the Knowsley menagerie

The same year, 1846, saw the publication of Illustrated Excursions in Italy, a fruit of his Italian journeys, and Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall.

1847

A journey through Calabria

In 1847 Lear travelled to southern Italy, to Calabria; he described his itinerary among breathtaking landscapes and often surreal characters in Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria, whose Calabria section is thought to be among the best of his travel literature.

1848–1849

Albania, Macedonia, Egypt and Greece

In 1848–49 Lear visited Albania, Vardar Macedonia, Egypt (all then part of the Ottoman Empire) and Greece. On the way he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings, which he later converted in his studio into oil and watercolour paintings and into prints for his books.

1849

Meets Franklin Lushington on Malta

In 1849 on Malta Lear met the young barrister Franklin Lushington and toured southern Greece with him. It was the most fervent and painful friendship of his life and lasted almost forty years, until Lear’s death; Lushington did not wholly reciprocate his feelings.