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in 1840 I had painted my two first oil-paintings. I also gave lessons
in drawing in Rome, and was able to make a very comfortable living.
In 1845 I came again to England, and in 1846 gave Queen Victoria
some lessons, through Her Majesty’s having seen a work I published
in that year on the Abruzzi, and another on the Roman States. In 1847
I went through all Southern Calabria, and again went round Sicily, and
in 1848 left Rome entirely. I travelled then to Malta, Greece, Constanti-
nople and the Ionian Islands; and to Mount Sinai and Greece a second
time in 1849, returning to England in that year. All 1850 I gave up to
improving myself in figure-drawing, and I continued to paint oil-paint-
ings till 1853, having published in the meantime, in 1851 and 1852,
two volumes entitled “Journals of a Landscape Painter” (in Albania and
Calabria). The first edition of “A Book of Nonsense” was published in
1846, lithographed by tracing-paper. In 1854 I went to Egypt and Swit-
zerland, and in 1855 to Corfu, where I remained the winters of 1856,
1857 and 1858, visiting Athos and, later, Jerusalem and Syria. In the
autumn of 1858 I returned to England, and 1859 and 1860 winters were
passed in Rome. 1861, I remained all the winter in England, and paint-
ed the Cedars of Lebanon and Masada, going, after my sister’s death in
March, 1861, to Italy. The two following winters — 1862 and 1863 — were
passed at Corfu, and in the end of the latter year I published “Views in
the Ionian Islands.” In 1862 a second edition of “A Book of Nonsense,”
much enlarged, was published, and is now in its sixteenth thousand.
O bother!
Yours affectionately,
Edward Lear.