The Owl and The Pussycat

I've always loved Edward Lear. So I was delighted when W.'s aunt turned up on Labor Day weekend with a couple of old books for Miss M., one of which was a copy of Lear's "Nonsense Songs", illustrated by one L. Leslie Brooke. The other book was written and illustrated by the same Brooke and is called "Johnny Crow's Party", and happens to be the companion to a book my mother had as a child called "Johnny Crow's Garden". I got curious about Brooke and went slip-sliding around the internet looking for information, background, what have you. Alas, I didn't find much biographical stuff, but I did discover that some of his books have been digitized.

Wow. These digitized books are an amazing thing. They're all supposedly out of copyright, so once it's out there on the web, it's available to me and to you and to anyone else. I found that the New York Public Library's copy of the Lear was up there, so I downloaded the large pdf - it turned out to be the same book as mine. But their copy has had the spine taped back together (with what looks like Scotch tape) and mine has a color illustration up front that differs from theirs. So that the internet is complete (hah!), here's the illustration variant - a very whimsical color plate of the owl looking lecherous and the pussycat simpering alongside. The piggy-wig (with a ring at the end of his nose) and the turkey (who lives on the hill) are in the background.