Oddlet: Edward Lear · 1 min read
Jul 8, 2026
A House for Foss
A Victorian poet built a second house identical to his first, same rooms, same floor plan, so his cat wouldn't feel disoriented.
Edward Lear was, by his fifties, one of the most-traveled Englishmen alive. He had painted the Earl of Derby's parrots, given Queen Victoria twelve drawing lessons, scribbled "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" in Cannes for a sick three-year-old, and wandered from Albania to Ceylon with a sketchbook.
He retired to San Remo with a tabby named Foss.
Foss had half a tail, docked by a servant on Mediterranean folk theory, and Lear loved him with the unembarrassed completeness of a man who had given up on most other arrangements. When a new hotel went up in front of his Villa Emily and blocked the sea view, Lear did not move. He bought land further up the hill and built a second house, Villa Tennyson, as an exact duplicate of the first. Same rooms. Same floor plan. His stated reason was that Foss would otherwise feel disoriented.
Foss died on 26 November 1887 and was buried under a fig tree beneath a marble headstone. Lear, composing the epitaph, gave the cat's age as thirty-one. Foss was seventeen.
Lear died in the duplicate house two months later, with a servant in the room.
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- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Edward Lear — Authoritative biographical summary — birth/death dates and places, 'youngest of 21 children' raised by Ann, John Gould bird drawings, Knowsley work 1832–37, nonsense books, epilepsy and melancholia, travels, final residence in San Remo with Foss.
- Wikipedia — Edward Lear — Detailed coverage of family (Jeremiah Lear, Ann Clark Skerrett), age-6 epilepsy onset, 'the Morbids,' Knowsley patronage, Lushington, Augusta Bethell proposals, Foss, Villa Tennyson, and death/burial at Foce Cemetery.
- Wikipedia — The Owl and the Pussy-Cat — Confirms the poem was written for three-year-old Janet Symonds, daughter of John Addington and Catherine Symonds; the coinage 'runcible' originated here; first published 1870 in 'Our Young Folks,' reprinted 1871.
- Hektoen International — Edward Lear (medical-history essay) — Source for epilepsy onset, monthly seizure frequency, 'the Demon' / 'the Morbids' terminology, X-mark diary practice with 1–10 severity score, and secrecy surrounding his condition.
- Wikipedia — Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae — Confirms 1832 publication, 42 hand-coloured lithographs, 175 subscriber copies, drawn from life, first plates issued 1830 when Lear was 18.
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