Excerpt from Nonsense Songs In issuing this new edition of the "Nonsense Songs" the Publishers desire to say that, feeling Mr. Lear had, contrary to his usual custom, presented these songs to the public illustrated in the slightest manner only, they have, with the assistance of Mr. L. Leslie Brooke, endeavoured to create a wider interest in verses which for so many years have given unwonted pleasure to thousands of readers. A generation has already passed since these songs were penned, but their humour is of the kind that does not evaporate after a few years, and they are as fresh to-day as when first published. In the "Introduction," written by him for the Ninth Edition of "Nonsense Songs and Stories," Sir Edward Strachey asks, "What is Nonsense?" and after declaring that "Nonsense... has shown itself to be a true work of the imagination, a child of genius, and its writing one of the fine arts," he goes on to say that - "From the days when Aristotle Investigated the philosophy of laughter, and Aristophanes gave laughter its fullest - I might say its maddest - expression on the stage at Athens, down to this week's issue of Punch, Nonsense has asserted and made good its claim to a place among the Arts. It has indeed pressed each of them in turn into its service. Nonsense has found the highest expression of itself in music, painting, sculpture, and every form of poetry and prose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.