Book #49

Nonsense by Edward Lear

Exuberant and ingenious, Lear's best-loved poems tell of jumblies, quangle wangles and luminous noses.


Finally, a Little Black Classics poetry collection I can say I love. No intellectual stimulation, no interpretation, no smoke and mirrors. Just some simple, joyful, smile inducing nonsense poems.

I spent a lovely half hour reading these, and couldn’t help the grin spreading across my face. Lear’s ridiculous words have a strange kind of magic attached to them - I truly believe he could warm a cold, dead heart.


“The Scroobius Pip looked vaguely round
And sang these words with a rumbling sound -
‘Chippetty Flip - Flippetty Chip -
My only name is the Scroobius Pip.”