Jenny Uglow

Edward Lear is the writer of some of our most loved poetry. The Owl and the Pussycat has been voted the UK's favourite poem many times. This lecture will explore the life behind the rhymes and reveals a natural history painter, a landscape artist, and only later a somewhat reluctant nonsense poet. A contemporary of Lewis Carroll and a friend to Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, should we see him as a product of his time or a romantic rebel?

Lecturer Jenny Uglow, awarded an OBE in 2008 and previously a chair of The Royal Society for Literature, 2014-16, grew up in Cumbria and Dorset and currently lives part time in Borrowdale. She studied English at Oxford, before working in publishing and eventually becoming Editorial Director of Chatto & Windus, part of Random House. Jenny is the author of many both popular and prize -winning biographies including Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories;  Hogarth: A Life and a World , Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick,   and The Pinecone: The Story of Sarah Losh, about a visionary Victorian woman architect. Jenny reviews for press and radio and has been a historical consultant on several BBC classic series.