EDWARD LEAR IN THE LEVANT
Travels in Albania, Greece and Turkey in Europe 1848-1849

Compiled and Edited by
SUSAN HYMAN

JOHN MURRAY, LONDON
1988

OF great travellers, Lear was the most improbable. His health was bad; he had neither education nor means and was often close to ruin. Gentle and peace-loving, he was terrified of dogs, horses and firearms, prone to sea-sickness and driven to distraction by noise and disorder. Yet he travelled constantly across countries still dangerous and unknown to Western Europeans, usually alone or with one servant, often on foot. He preferred to avoid whatever comfort and protection could be offered by British officials or local grandees.

Though in his lifetime he managed to publish only a few accounts of his travels, he did produce a wealth of letters and diaries, paintings, sketches and cartoons. Many of these are still largely unknown, though they are of marvellous quality and variety. In words or in paint, unsurpassed in his own time or since, Lear captured the sublimity of landscape, the richness of costume, the character of people encountered. His cartoons also captured the bizarre and risible in his own predicament: not for nothing did the surrealists adopt him as honorary ancestor.

Here, in the centenary year of his death, are Lear's paintings and sketches of one of the earliest and most remarkable of his journeys. The illustrations - of which most have not been previously reproduced and many are in full colour — are accompanied by letters and journals mostly hitherto unpublished (including a recently rediscovered diary) expertly edited and elucidated by Susan Hyman.

This lavishly illustrated book portrays unforgettably an awe-inspiring, exotic, often barbarous.world that fascinated and appalled Victorian Europe, but which history and tourism have now almost wholly transformed.

26 x 25 cm. 168 pp.

Very good condition. Some foxing to the top edge but otherwise clean and tidy.