The entry on Edward Lear (1812-88) in my Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature - incidentally right below an entry on J. S. Le Fanu mentioning In a Glass Darkly, the collection including Carmilla - states:
'Lear was by profession a landscape painter, but his elaborate landscape paintings have much less distinction and interest than his drawings and sketches.'
Fortunately, there is more of interest in Lear's work as a landscape painter than the Guide will have us believe. He published his Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania, &c in 1851, and a couple of years ago a television series followed in Lear's footsteps on his journey through Greece and Albania: An Exile in Paradise: The Adventures of Edward Lear is currently aired here in Denmark, so I just caught the episode in which Robert Horne - described as 'an adventurer, traveller and writer with a keen interest in art and science fiction' - guides the viewer through Albania, looking for the places where Lear stayed and tracing the history from Lear's time until today. Lear appears to have been something of an adventurer himself.
Detailed information on the production is available from Lear Productions, with the promo below. A DVD, unfortunately, is currently unavailable.
