A Book of Nonsense

About

Lear's Book of Nonsense (1846) introduced the limerick to popular literature and invented the particular flavor of English nonsense that Carroll would perfect: a world where absurd things happen without distress, and the comedy lies in the distance between the ordinary language and the impossible events. 'There was an Old Man with a beard' and its companions established a form that has never lost its appeal. As group reading, limericks work perfectly round-robin; any number of readers.