Biography
Although now best known for his nonsense verse, Edward Lear was a superb draughtsman, a talented musician, an intrepid traveller and an outstanding landscape artist and travel writer. He was born in London and began to draw commercially at the age of sixteen. He developed a passion for travelling and in 1837 he moved to Rome, where he lived for a decade. Lear visited Greece for the first time in 1848, as a part of an extended tour that took him to Corfu, Athens, Turkey, Albania and Egypt, before returning to Greece in the spring of 1849. He lived in Corfu form 1855-64, and continued to lead an itinerant existence. He travelled widely in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and touring India and Sri Lanka in 1873-5. His final years were spent in San Remo, Italy where he died in 1888.
