by Jenny Gaschke

'O Nile! O beautiful endlessly endowed Nile!'

This delightful collection of watercolour sketches by popular nonsense poet and landscape painter, Edward Lear (1812-88), transports the reader to nineteenth-century Egypt, as seen through the eyes of a Victorian traveller. Lear's evocative images reveal the magically changing light along the Nile, where he was entranced by the exotic landscape, the ruins of an ancient civilization and the rich variety of traditional river craft.

Lear was an intrepid traveller and the book's introduction reveals the man behind the nonsense as an artist of considerable importance, recording the timeless pageant of life along the Nile at the dawn of the age of modern tourism.

Jenny Gashke is Curator of Fine Art at the National Maritime Museum.

• Hardback 
• 64 pages
• ISBN: 9781906367206