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THE FOUR LITTLE CHILDREN WHO WENT AROUND THE WORLD by Edward Lear

THE FOUR LITTLE CHILDREN WHO WENT AROUND THE WORLD

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Pub Date: Aug. 19th, 1968
Publisher: Macmillan

Lesser Lear, but it still beats supercallifragilisticexpialadocious. First published in Nonsense Songs and Stories with the author's stark outlines, it has been elaborated by Arnold Lobel into quasi-Victorian insouciance. The Quangle-Wangle, no slim evanescent, emerges in full naval uniform and chef's hat, hairy and hefty. The fabulous voyagers (Violet, Slingsby, Guy and Lionel) set sail with intrepid determination and take in the sights: crusty Crabbies with unscrewable claws, Bluebottle Flies in residence, the cooperative Cauliflower, the enormous Seeze Pyder. Right up to the rhino-turned-diaphanous-door-scraper (surely Liberty's at Christmas), the arch alliteration and verbal vagaries travel far, (but they need a non-scroobious, alert reader).