Written for the poet John Addington Symonds's young daughter Janet while
she was ill and confined to her bed, 'The Owl and the Pussycat' sees the
two enamoured animals sail away in a boat "for a year and a day / To the
land with the bong tree grows", where they get married.
Long considered one of the nation's favourite poems, it is combined here
with other memorable examples of what Lear called "nonsense songs", such
as 'Calico Pie' and 'The Duck and the Kangaroo', as well as with
nonsense stories, cookery, botany and alphabets, in a collection that
transports adults and children alike to the extraordinary world of
Edward Lear's imagination.