The Book Of Nonsense

Illustrated by Charles Folkard in color, with original drawings by Tenniel, Lear, Furniss, Holiday, Hughes, Sheppard and others. Anthologies of nonsense usually begin with Edward Lear, but, as the present collection shows, even the ancient Greeks did not always confine themselves to sense. A medieval nonsense poem leads the way to a selection of nonsense rhymes of varying dates-but it is almost as surprising to find Ben Jonson and Shakespeare in such a collection as it is to find Swift and Dr. Johnson. From their 'Age of Reason' come such famous examples of nonsense as the 'Grand Panjandrum' and original version of Baron Munchausen's adventures, besides several other poems and verses, and the early years of the nineteenth century have several unexpected representations.


Genre: Children's Fiction