CHRONOLOGY

1812-1825

Edward Lear was born in Highgate, 12 May. He was the twentieth child of Jeremiah Lear, a London stockbroker, and his wife Ann.
Four years after his birth, Jeremiah fell a defaulter in the Stock Exchange and the family had to abandon the fashionable life to which they were accustomed. Edward's upbringing was entrusted to his sister Ann, twenty-one years his senior, and Mrs Lear had nothing more to do with it. Young Edward certainly resented his mother's rejection, but found all the love he needed in Ann.
He was first attacked by what he called 'the Demon', epilepsy, when he was five or six, and a few years later 'the Morbids', sudden changes of mood with bouts of acute depression, began.
His early education was completely left to Ann and Sarah, another sister: beside the typical tuition books of the age they read to him classical tales and modern poetry (the Romantic poets), and taught him to draw, especially natural subjects.

c.1826

Lear's father retires and as he cannot provide for his children, Edward, who still lives with Ann, begins to earn his living as an artist.

1830

Starts work on Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in June. The first two folios are published in November and immediately give him a reputation as an ornithological draughtsman; he is nominated as an Associate of the Linnean Society.

1831

Lear interrupts the series about the Psittacidae and begins a collaboration with John Gould (The Birds of Europe).
In October he wrote in a letter to Charles Empson also containing a sketch of himself:

This is amazingly like; add only - that both my knees are fractured from being run over which has made them very peculiarly crooked - that my neck is singularly long, a most elephantine nose - & a disposition to tumble here & there - owing to being half blind, & you may very well imagine my tout ensemble. (Selected Letters, p. 16)

1831 or 1832

Visits Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berne, and Berlin with Gould.

1832

Lear starts drawing the animals in the menagerie of Knowsley Hall for Lord Stanley.

1835

Travels to Ireland with Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and his son Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, July-August. His interst turns to landscape painting.

1836

Walking tour in the Lake District, August-October. His eyesight and general health deteriorate.

1837

Sets out for Rome travelling via Belgium, Luxenburg, Germany, and Switzerland, July. Reaches Rome, December.

1838

Travels to southern Italy, May-August. Earliest oil painting, June.

1839

Walking tour towards Florence, May-October.

1841

Returns to England, spring. Publication of Views in Rome and its environs. Visits Scotland, September. Returns to Rome, December.

1842

Visits Sicily, April-May, and the Abruzzi, July-October.

1843

Returns to the Abruzzi, September-October.

1845

Meets Chichester Fortescue, April. Returns to England, May.

1846

Publication of Illustrated Excursions in Italy (2 vols.). Publication of first edition of A Book of Nonsense, using the pseudonym Derry Down Derry. Publication of Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Gives a series of twelve drawing lessons to Queen Victoria. Returns to Rome, December.

1847

Visits Sicily and southern Calabria and witnesses outbursts of revolution, May-October.

1848

Meets Thomas Baring, later Lord Northbrook, February. The state of Italy becomes more unsettled, and Lear leaves Rome, April. Travels via Malta to Corfu and the Ionian Islands, April-May. Visits Athens, Marathon, Thermophylae, and Thebes, where he is taken ill, June-July. Arrives in Costantinople, August. Travels across Greece and into Albania, September-December. Returns to Malta, and meets Fraanklin Lushington, December.

1849

Travels to Cairo, Suez, and Sinai, January-February. Returns to Malta, then sets out for southern Greece with F. Lushington, March. Travels in the Morea and visits Janina, Vale of Tempe, and Mount Olympus, March-July. Returns to England, July. Attends Sass's School of Art to prepare drawings for entrance to the Royal Academy Schools, November-December.

1850

Accepted as a probationer, January, and as a full student, April. First picture accepted by the Royal Academy. By November he is working on his own again.

1851

Publication of Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania, & c. Meets Alfred and Emely Tennyson.

1852

Introduced to Holman Hunt, who offers to teach him his own methods of painting, early summer. Lives with Hunt at Clive Vale, Hastings, and meets other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, July-December. He begins to gain confidence in oil painting, and conceives the plan of illustrating Tennyson's poems. Publication of Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria.

1853

Publication of the first of his musical settings of Tennyson's poems. Unable to cope any longer with the damp Englsh weather, he leaves to spend the winter in Egypt, December.

1854

Travels up the Nile as far as the first cataract, January-March. Returns to England, then visits Switzerland, August-October.

1855

Publication of the second edition of A Book of Nonsense. Accompanies Lushington to Corfu for the winter. Spending most of his time alone, he becomes lonely and depressed.

1856

Employs Giorgio Cocali, April. Travels via Albania and Greece to Mount Athos and Troy, August-October.

1857

Visits Albania, April. Returns to London for the summer, May, and to Corfu for the winter, November.

1858

Travels to Bethlehem, hebron, Petra, the Dead SEa, Jerusalem and Lebanon, March-June. Returns to England, August. Decides to winter in Rome.

1859

Returns to England in May, and spends most of the summer at St Leonards. Returns to Rome, December.

1860

To England, May. Begins work on large oil paintings of the Cedars of Lebanon and Masada at Oatlands Park Hotel, October.

1861

His sister Ann becomes ill, and dies 11 March. Visits Florence, May-August. Cedars of Lebanon exhibited in Liverpool and receives favourable reviews, September. Returns to winter again in Corfu, November. Publication of third edition of A Book of Nonsense under his own name, December.

1862

Cedars of Lebanon exhibited in the Great International Exhibition, March, but hung very high and not well received. Returns to England, May. leaves England for Corfu, November. Despite the increasing sales of the last ten years, he now realizes that his chances of becoming established are diminishing, and he works on his first group of Tyrants.

1863

Visits the other Ionian Islands, April-May. Returns to England, June. Publication of Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, December.

1864

Returns to Corfu, January. The island is ceded to the Greeks and he leaves for Athens and Crete, April. In London, June-November. Decides to winter in southern France and leaves England. Finds rooms in Nice, November.

1865

Writes the first of his Nonsense stories, The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple, February.. Returns to England, April. Lady Waldergrave commissions a painting of Venice, and he travels there, November. Decides to winter in Malta, December.

1866

Returns to England. (November) Thinks about proposing marriage to Gussie Bethell. Travels to Egypt and Jerusalem. Returns to England. Winter in Cannes. Writes the "Owl and the Pussycat" song.

1867

Visits Gaza and Jerusalem, then returns to England via Ravenna, June. Leaves to winter in Cannes, November. Writes the first of his Nonsense songs, The Owl and the Pussycat, December. The Cedars of Lebanon sold to Louisa, Lady Ashburton for £200, less than a third of its original price.

1868

Travels in Corsica, May-June, then returns to England until December. Leaves for Cannes, December.

1869

In Paris, working on plates for his book on Corsica, June-July. In London until December, when he returns to Cannes. Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica, the last of his travel books, published December.

1870

Decides to settle, and buys land in San Remo, March. Summer in Certosa del Pesio. Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets published, December.

1871

Moves into Villa Emily, March. More Nonsense published, December.

1872

Spends the summer in England, June-October. Sets out for India, but turns back at Suez, October. Foss the cat arrives, November. More Nonsense Songs and Stories.

1873

Leaves for India, October. Arrives Bombay, November.

1874

Travels in India and Ceylon.

1875

Leaves India, January. Summer in England, June-September.

1876

His last Nonsense book, Laughable Lyrics, published December.

1877

England, May-September. Brief visit to Corfu to see Giorgio who is ill, September.

1878

Summer, Monte Generoso, Switzerland. The land below his house is cleared for building, October.

1879

Lady Waldergrave dies, July. Summer, Monte Generoso.

1880

Buy new land for building, February. Last visit to England, April-August; Varese, Monte Generoso, September-October.

1881

Summer on Monte Generoso. Moves into Villa Tennyson, October.

1882

Summer in Monte Generoso.

1883

Summer in Monte Generoso. Giorgio Cocali dies, August.

1884

Villa Emily sold, February. Summer in Recoaro.

1885

Summer in Brianza.

1886

Spends some weeks in bed with bronchitis, January-April. John Ruskin places him at the head of his list of favourite authors in the Pall Mall Gazette, February. Makes his final repayment of debt for building Villa Tennyson, March.

1887

Abandons Tennyson-illustrations project as a failure. Foss dies, November.

1888

Dies in San Remo, 29 January.

1889-90

“Nonsense Drolleries” and "The Jumblies”

All the information above derives from

OTHER CHONOLOGIES

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