One Wild Flower

Louise Schweitzer's fascinating and beautiful book shines a light on the often misunderstood but much-loved and delightful genre of Nonsense writing. By focussing on its golden age during the mid-nineteenth century and, in particular, the work of three of the great Nonsense writers of the time * Edward Lear, WS Gilbert, and Lewis Carroll * the reader is taken on a voyage of discovery. Schweitzer looks in detail at the life and work of each one of this great Victorian Nonsense triumvirate and how three such conservative and solemn men came to produce fantastic and spontaneous expressions of freedom in the form of Nonsense poetry. In looking at their lives, Schweitzer also discusses Victorian society and how it provided both the rich source for much Nonsense writing as well as the fertile conditions for this one wild flower to grow and flourish.