爱德华·利尔,英国十九世纪的作家和画家,1812年生在伦敦。他对写诗作画很有才能,十五岁就靠作画维持自己的生活,并渐渐学会了画一手很好的五彩动物画。德比伯爵慕名请他去给他私人动物园的动物作画,他在伯爵家待了四年,和伯爵的孙儿女们成了好朋友,写滑稽的短诗给他们读,受到他们的喜爱。他这些诗每首四行,开头总是“话说有位老人在× Edward Lear, a British 19th-century writer and painter, was born in London in 1812. He was very talented in writing poetry. At the age of fifteen, he maintained his own life by painting and gradually learned to draw well-drawn colorful animal pictures. Derby admired him and asked him to paint the animals at his private zoo. After four years with the Earl, he made good friends with his grandkids and wrote funny short poems for them to read and enjoy. Each of these four lines of his poems, beginning with always ”saying there is an old man in ×