In 1872 Edward Lear published a new book - More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc.. It included One Hundred Nonsense Pictures And Rhymes - 100 new limericks closely modelled on the verses that had done so well for Lear in A Book of Nonsense.

These new limericks represent the third wave of Lear’s venture in the form.

The first was in 1846, when he published A Book of Nonsense.

The second was in 1863, when A Book of Nonsense, to Which is Added More Nonsense, became a bestseller, launching the limerick on a journey that would continue through the turn of two centuries.

But Lear’s third wave was barely a ripple.

Coming nine years after his great success, the verses in One Hundred Nonsense Pictures and Rhymes caused no excitement. If they were read at all, they were quickly forgotten, along with Lear’s formula that discarded the most powerful element in a limerick’s arsenal: the fifth line.

The limerick had moved on without Lear, developing its own rigid set of rules defining a form that could take on any thought a human being could entertain.

In The Fifth Line, I created 112 new limericks from the bones of A Book of Nonsense. I called it The Fifth Line because that was the part of the limerick - the heart of the limerick - that Lear had cast out, and that I wanted to restore.

In The Next Hundred Lears, I’ve revived all of Lear’s 1872 originals and paired them with my own new verses. At times I draw clearly on the source; at other times not. I’m fond of some, and less fond of others. Limericks are always a work in progress.

But they’re also an entertainment, and I hope that, in The Next Hundred Lears, you’ll find a genuine smile or two :)

John Arthur Nichol, Sydney, 2020