There was an old man on the Border, Who lived in the utmost disorder;He danced with the cat, and made tea in his hat, Which vexed all the folks on the Border. Enjoy Edward Lear's hilarious, bizarre and delightfully bonkers limericks — published on their own for the first time. As found in the collected works, The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear, which has been in print since 1947 and has sold tens of thousands of copies. The nonsense works, of which the limericks were a part, were first published in the mid-1800s.