Helen Beatrix Heelis, usually known as Beatrix Potter, was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which was her first commercially published work in 1902. Her books, including The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck and The Tale of Tom Kitten, have sold more than 250 million copies. An entrepreneur, Potter was a pioneer of character merchandising. In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised.
A limerick is a form of verse that appeared in Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland in the early years of the 18th century. In combination with a refrain, it forms a limerick song, a traditional humorous drinking song often with obscene verses. It is written in five-line, predominantly and amphibrach trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme.
Nonsense verse is a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature.
Children's poetry is poetry written for, appropriate for, or enjoyed by children.
Govind Vinayak Karandikar, better known as Vindā, was an Indian poet, writer, literary critic, and translator in the Marathi-language.
Literary nonsense is a broad categorization of literature that balances elements that make sense with some that do not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning. Even though the most well-known form of literary nonsense is nonsense verse, the genre is present in many forms of literature.
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter as part of the Peter Rabbit series. The book contains eight chapters and numerous illustrations. Though the book was one of Potter's last publications in 1930, it was one of the first stories she wrote.
David Bernard Wood OBE is an English actor, author, composer, director, magician and producer. The Times called him "the National Children's Dramatist". In 1979, he joined Bernard Cribbins, Maurice Denham, and Jan Francis in a reading of The Hobbit for the BBC Television show Jackanory.
Elton Hayes was a British actor and guitarist.
Christian Victor Noel Hope Hely-Hutchinson was a British composer, conductor, pianist and music administrator. He is best known for the Carol Symphony and for humorous song-settings.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Burl Ives' Animal Folk is one of several albums for children by the folk singer Burl Ives.
Leonine verse is a type of versification based on an internal rhyme between a word within the line before a caesura and a word at the end, and commonly used in Latin verse of the European Middle Ages. The proliferation of such conscious rhymes, uncommon in Classical Latin poetry, is traditionally attributed to a probably apocryphal monk Leonius, who is supposed to be the author of a history of the Old Testament preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. It is possible that this Leonius is the same person as Leoninus, a Benedictine musician of the twelfth century, in which case he would not have been the original proliferator of the form.
"Runcible" is a pseudoword invented by Edward Lear. The word appears several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat. The word "runcible" was apparently one of Lear's favourite inventions, appearing in several of his works in reference to a number of different objects. In his verse self-portrait, The Self-Portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense, it is noted that "he weareth a runcible hat". Other poems include mention of a "runcible cat", a "runcible goose", a "runcible wall", and "the Rural Runcible Raven".
Five Childhood Lyrics is a choral composition by John Rutter, who set five texts, poems and nursery rhymes, for mixed voices a cappella. Rutter composed the work for the London Concord Singers who first performed them in 1973.
Foss, formally named Aderphos, was the pet cat of Edward Lear, the 19th-century author, artist, illustrator and poet. A "stumpy-tailed," "portly," and "unattractive" tabby cat, he was a favourite of Lear's and played an important role as a companion in the poet's lonely later years. Foss is mentioned frequently in Lear's correspondence and appears in his illustrations and at least one poem. Foss is said to have been the inspiration for the pussycat in Lear's illustrations for his poem "The Owl and the Pussycat". The funeral that Lear provided for Foss, which included an epigraphed headstone, is said to have been more elaborate than Lear's own.
Arnold Lobel was a children's author and illustrator. He wrote:
"The Owl and the Pussy Cat" is a song for soprano and piano composed by Igor Stravinsky in 1966, based on the eponymous text by Edward Lear. It is Stravinsky's final completed original composition.
The Owl and the Pussy-cat at Wikisource 
