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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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EDWARD LEAR (1812 - 1888) The mother of the famous nonsense writer, Ann Skerrit, was the daughter of a County Durham sea-captain. She eloped with Jeremiah Lear in 1788 and the couple were married at Wanstead in Essex. Ann was barely nineteen, but the marriage was a success and she had twenty-one children. She died at Dover in 1844 Her daughter Ann received a legacy of £300 a year from her grandmother Florence Skerrit and it was Ann who looked after the frail and bookish Lear's upbringing and education. Lear treated her more as a mother than a sister, and was devoted to her. His regular letters to her are full of tenderness.
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