Last modified on Fri 5 Feb 2021 10.45 EST He is best known for sending an owl and a pussycat off to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. But before he ever took up a pen to write poetry, Edward Lear was an extremely well regarded natural history painter, whose lifelike portraits of birds and mammals were among the most sought-after scientific illustrations of his day. Now, a new paperback edition of The Natural History of Edward Lear, is seeking to reignite interest in Lear’s “important” work as a talented natural historian, with 13 never-before-published illustrations that shed light on the relationship between the Victorian author’s art and his literature.