Edward Lear

In 2020, to mark the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, I put together Edward Lear's drawings and paintings of Thermopylae.

My edition of Edward Lear's Cretan Journal was first published in 1984; a revised third edition was published to coincide with the bicentenary of Lear's birth, in 2012.

For 2012 I also curated a display of Lear's scientific drawings at the Royal Society: Edward Lear and the Scientists: Text and Images from a Bicentenary Exhibition.

Together with Elizabeth Wells I have prepared a web edition of Edward Lear’s Grecian Travels: The Journal of a Tour in Attica and Euboea in 1848.

Also available online are my editions of:


Lear in Zakynthos, Ithaca and Cephalonia, 1848

Lear's Greek journey of 1856: Corfu to Salonica 

Lear's travels in Greece and Albania in 1857

Lear in Paxos 1863.


At present I am working on a web edition of his visit to all the Ionian Islands (excepting Corfu) in 1863. Paxos is now available, and Santa Maura/Lefkada is under construction. For the Introduction to this edition click here.

When complete, these webpages will reconstruct as nearly as possible Lear's own projected “Topography of Greece”.