The runcible uncle
Clive Aslet is delighted by this moving account of the much-loved artist and poet
Biography Mr Lear Jenny Uglow (Faber, £25)
Jenny UGLOW has loved edward Lear from childhood. There is, of course, much to love about this man of whimsy: his nonsense verse, parrots, irrepressibly funny letters and general character of being a whimsical, runcible uncle. If there’s also something to debunk, Mrs Uglow is lenient. Beautifully written and published, with a charm appropriate to the subject, her new book is the gentle product of deep research. I was engrossed.
Lear often complained of being someone who, ‘at the age of 14 and a half, was turned out into the world, literally without a farthing—and with nought to look to for a living but his own exertions’. This was not ‘literally’ true, although he did always struggle for money and mourn his lack of formal or artistic education.
his evangelical father at times flourished as a sugar refiner-turned-city broker, but was forced to default in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo. In the ensuing turmoil, the family left their com- fortable home and the four-yearold Lear was given to his eldest sister, ann, to bring up. Lear never forgave his mother (who had given birth to 21 children). added to that trauma was his epilepsy—not of the most debilitating kind, but a source of shame and anxiety.
on the death of a male cousin in the 1870s, Lear wrote: ‘It is just 50 years since he did me the greatest evil done to me in life, excepting that done by C.’ It’s not known what that evil consisted of (nor the identity of C): presumably, some kind of sexual abuse.
The only other clue to Lear’s sex life is a comment made in his diary after he found his Greek servant’s son crying from shame because he thought he had syphilis (he didn’t): ‘Considering that I myself in 1833 had every sort of syphilitic disease, who am I to blame others?’ Mrs Uglow sensitively recounts the failed courtships with women and doomed friendships with men, which contributed to his depression in later years.
Fortunately, Lear had several talents, most obviously for painting. The drawings of Lord Derby’s menagerie, which he made as a young man, are breathtaking for their observation and technical accomplishment. as ever, the occasional drôlerie is enchanting. he could also delight a drawing room with his humour and singing, although not everybody appreciated the latter.
Lear did children a service by publishing absurdities for their consumption at a time when most children’s books were moralistic. all these could have been taken as successes, but he set his sights higher. alas, he never found the financial security that was achieved by the big royal academicians. and he thought himself hideous.
as a result, he specialised in exotic landscapes, churning them out by almost a factory method. Warm climes—corfu, the Middle east, India—helped his asthma and ‘wandering’ in them, he wrote when ann died, provided an escape.
nonsense supplied another hiding place. nobody has analysed it so well as Mrs Uglow—its ambiguity, violence, verbal acrobatics, obsession with elevated places, such as mountaintops and the branches of trees, and the accompanying drawings of disjointed, pointy-toed people whose antics aren’t always explained.
It’s the inner fantasy of the man, a consolation for sadness, that makes him so worth a biography of 600 pages: not a whit too long.
‘There is much to love about this man of whimsy ’