Ever eaten Poodle Strudel? Slain a Jabberwock? Bathed in Irish Stew? Quentin Blake is one of the best loved of children’s illustrators. In this brilliant book he has selected and illustrated his favourite comic verse, making it pure entertainment for nonsense-lovers of all ages. His unique style of drawing brings a new perspective to every poem. Classic writers such as Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear are combined with more contemporary talents such as Roger McGough, Margaret Mahy and Russell Hoban. With fifteen wonderfully absurd sections, including Distracting Creatures, Sticky Ends, I Wish I Were a Jelly Fish, A Recipe for Indigestion and Chortling and Galumphing, here is a delightful collection of the topsy-turvy, the fantastical, the anarchic, the illogical and the utterly wonderful.
This hilariously readable collection of classic nonsense poetry, delightfully illustrated throughout, is a showcase of comic talent and sheer silliness. The Everyman Book of Nonsense Verse features an eclectic spectrum of contributors ranging wildly from Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll to Hilaire Belloc, Ted Hughes, Ogden Nash, and Shakespeare, with illustrations by Mervyn Peake, Quentin Blake, Emma Chichester Clark, Spike Milligan, and the deliciously sinister Edward Gorey. Such old favorites as “The Owl and the Pussycat” are accompanied by “Macavity: The Mystery Cat” and “Jabberwocky,” while Ted Hughes’s “Wodwo” sits alone by the bank of a stream in a state of innocence and curiosity that mirrors a child’s sense of wonder at the universe. Whether sweetly funny or deliciously naughty, these masterpieces of the art of the absurd will charm readers both young and old.
The Book of Nonsense, first published in 1846, stands alone as the ultimate and most loved expression in English of freewheeling, benign, and unconstricted merriment. The poems of the book tell the stories of the owls, hen, larks, and their nests in his beard, and other fey fauna and peculiar persons. They all inhabit the uniquely inspired nonsense rhymes and drawings of Lear, who was a 20th child of a London stockbroker.
A seaside story to read with baby! Oh, there once was a Puffin, Just the shape of a muffin, And he lived on an island In the bright blue sea! The dear little Puffin is lonely on his island for he has no one to play with. In this beloved nonsense poem, children will rejoice when the muffin-shaped Puffin, who has a hat for almost every occasion, comes up with a simple—and simply delicious—solution to his problem.
The first collected and annotated edition of Carroll's brilliant, witty poems, edited by Gillian Beer. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...' wrote Lewis Carroll in his wonderfully playful poem of nonsense verse, 'Jabberwocky'. This new edition collects together the marvellous range of Carroll's poetry, including nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques, and more. Alongside the title piece are such enduringly wonderful pieces as 'The Walrus and the Carpenter', 'The Mock Turtle's Song', 'Father William' and many more. This edition also includes notes, a chronology and an introduction by Gillian Beer that discusses Carroll's love of puzzles and wordplay and the relationship of his poetry with the Alice books 'Opening at random Gillian Beer's new edition of Lewis Carroll's poems, Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense, guarantees a pleasurable experience - not all of it nonsensical' - Times Literary Supplement Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Born in 1832, he was educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was appointed lecturer in mathematics in 1855, and where he spent the rest of his life. In 1861 he took deacon's orders, but shyness and a stammer prevented him from seeking the priesthood. His most famous works, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872), were originally written for Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Dean of his college. Charles Dodgson died of bronchitis in 1898. Gillian Beer is King Edward VII Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Cambridge and past President of Clare Hall College. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature. Among her works are Darwin's Plots (1983; third edition, 2009), George Eliot (1986), Arguing with the Past: Essays in Narrative from Woolf to Sidney (1989), Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter (1996) and Virginia Woolf: The Common Ground (1996).
A collection of the absurd, ridiculous, sublime and characteristically anarchic verse from the brilliant Spike Milligan. With his very own illustrations, this collection, which includes the famous On the Ning Nang Nong will make you laugh from the bottom of your belly - just like Spike did.
This collection demonstrates the varied ways in which Edward Lear pursued his philosophy of life. It includes 'The Owl and the Pussy-cat', 'The Quangle Wangle's Hat', and numerous comic limericks, along with stories, letters, alphabets and recipes. This ed. originally published: 2002.
