This collection contains all of Lear’s most celebrated verse and prose productions, from the 1846 volume of limericks, A Book of Nonsense, to his Nonsense Songs, which includes ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’, long considered one of the nation’s favourite poems, and lesser-known pieces composed in the same waywardly imaginative vein.

Embodying his passion for nonsense, Lear’s limericks, stories, poems, alphabets and miscellaneous pieces, each accompanied by one of the author’s beguiling original illustrations, are fun, lyrical, lively and hilarious, and have enchanted children and adults since their first appearance in print.