Books: Slushypipp

EDWARD LEAR—Angus Davidson— Dutton ($3.75)

To limerick lovers the name Edward Lear has long (and incorrectly) meant the inventor of the limerick. To painters it has meant a third-rate landscapist of the second-rate British school. But when grandfather was a little boy, Edward Lear meant a big fat Book of Nonsense with a gilt cat bowing a bull fiddle on the cover. Inside were such "queery Leary" drawings and poems as the Owl and the Pussy-Cat,† The Moppsikon Floppsikon Bear, The Dong with the Luminous Nose. Last week Author Angus Davidson took this nonsensical Englishman seriously enough...