LEAR, Edward (1812-88). Illustrated autograph letter, signed ("Edward Lear"), to Mrs Digby Wyatt, San Remo, 6 February 1871. Two-pages, 210 x 265mm, illustrated with three self-caricature drawings.

LEAR, Edward (1812-88).  Illustrated autograph letter, signed ("Edward Lear"), to Mrs Digby Wyatt, San Remo, 6 February 1871. Two-pages, 210 x 265mm, illustrated with three self-caricature drawings depicting the positions adopted by Lear while observing beans growing. "But my recent occupation is one so onerous in nature that I have little time and capacity for any but me favrit, which is Beans". Lear describes his newfound passion for beans, both runner- and green, in vivid and comic detail, writing also with news of his progress on three drawings which he doubts will ever be exhibited, and thanking Mrs Wyatt for sending him news of his Nonsense Songs ("[I] wished I could have heard you & Digby reading it. Endless letters have come to me all rejoicing in its nonsense, & I begin to think myself a useful member of society in my old age"). He amusingly relays the many difficulties he has experienced moving into his new residence, the Villa Emily ("the many incidents of bother now going on daily … I have got a violently bandy-legged little gardener who’s now digging up the terrace before the house … then there is a pebble watercourse and all kinds of other absurdities to make"). "I can think of nothing else [but beans], & pass my time almost wholly in watching for the first bean as comes to the Surfis. At first I sat on the bare ground, a la baboon, patiently watching for the first symptom of green. But after 4 days I found I began to get rheumatic, & so I gave up this mode of inspection & took to looking hard at my ground from a railing which surrounds it; thus. This plan however I was obliged to desist from, as it was so difficult to keep my equilibrium, & I more than once fell flat on the Bean ground. And so I have latterly adopted a position which bids fair to enable me to wait till the beans actually come up, – nameley by exactly balancing myself on the top rail over them." Lear’s villas in San Remo were successively named "Villa Tennyson" and "Villa Emily" in recognition of his close relationship with the family. Lear would live there from 1870 until his death in 1888. Provenance: Collection of Dr B.W. Paine; Sotheby's, London, 15 & 16 December 1980, lot 337.