The Owl and the Pussycat and Other Poems by Edward Lear

In this timeless children's classic, "The Owl and the Pussycat" hop in a boat and head out to sea, where Owl proposes in song. They buy a ring from a pig and are married by a turkey... and that, you have to know, hardly tells the tale at all. In few, very well-chosen, words, Lear's story can hardly be done justice in a simple recap. "The Owl and the Pussycat" is a famous nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1871. Lear wrote the poem for a young girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend, the poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine. Its most notable historical feature is the coinage of the term runcible spoon. It features four anthropomorphised animals (the owl, the pussycat, the 'piggy-wig' and a turkey) and revolves around the love between the title characters, who are married by the turkey in the third and final stanza. The title characters in "The Owl and the Pussycat" famously go to sea in "a beautiful pea-green boat". The phrase "pea-green" occurs several times in Lear's writings including his surviving diaries. This version is newly laid out with facsimiles of more than 100 original black and white illustrations. Also included in this book are Edward Lear's "The Duck and the Kangaroo" and "A Book of Nonsense," also with original black and white illustrations.