Of pelicans and pussycats

Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised but which term he never used. His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to make illustrations of birds and animals, making coloured drawings during his journeys (which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books) and as a minor illustrator of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry.