Category Archives: Nursery rhymes

Only Copy of “Nancy Cock’s Song-Book” (1744) Acquired

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Copies of the four foundational collections of English nursery rhymes are as scarce as  proverbial hen’s teeth.  There’s less chance of finding in your grandmother’s attic a copy of the two-volume Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-Book (1744), Mother Goose’s Melody (1780), or Gammer Gurton’s Garland (1784), than a 42-line Gutenberg Bible.  There are forty-eight copies of Gutenberg, versus no copies of the first volume  and two copies of  the second volume of Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-Book, one copy of  the 1784 edition of Mother Goose’s Melody, and one copy of Gammer Gurton’s Garland.

Until now, the black swan of nursery rhyme anthologies was the first edition of Nancy Cock’s Song-book, which was assumed to have vanished without a trace.  The English Short Title Catalog of eighteenth-century English imprints lists an edition printed around 1786 in Newry, North Ireland, and the Elisabeth Ball copy of a John Marshall edition from the early 1790s, now at the Lilly Library, Indiana University at Bloomington.  The nursery rhyme scholars Iona and Peter Opie considered Miss Ball’s copy of Nancy Cock one of the most important books in her collection because it was almost certainly a late edition of an anthology published earlier in the century. The rhymes it contained were recorded in the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951).

When and where this mysterious Nancy Cock was published remained a mystery until Brian Alderson and I found an advertisement for it in the May 15 issue of the Daily Post, which identified the publisher as one T. Read of Dogwell-Court while researching the history of the rival Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-book.  Read is not known to have been a competitor of Thomas Boreman, Mary Cooper, and John Newbery during the 1740s.nancy-cock-adJames Burgh’s Youth’s friendly Monitor; or, The affectionate School-master. Containing his last pathetic farewell Lecture to his young Pupils, on their Entrance into a busy World (1752) was a Thomas Read book, but childrens’ books do not seem to have been part of his stock in trade–unless Joe Miller’s Jests or a ripping yarn like The English Rogue: or, The Life of Jeremy Sharp, commonly called, Meriton Latroon (1741) count.   More down Read’s alley were things like  A Collection of the most remarkable Trials of Persons for High-treason, Murder, Rapes, Heresy, Bigamy, Burglary; and other Crimes and Misdemeanors (1734), Warm Beer, a Treatise. Proving, from Reason, Authority and Experience, that Beer so qualify’d, is far more wholesome than that which is drank cold (1741), or Celibacy: or, Good Advice to young Fellows to keep single. In which are painted, in very lively Colours, the Pictures of many terrible Wives, both at Court and in the City (1739).

Read’s motives for publishing a novelty like a nursery rhyme anthology are not clear, but he produced a winner.  Advertisements for different editions of Nancy Cock in London and American papers between 1747 and 1770 indicate that it was frequently reprinted.  No copies by any publisher survive, however.   Only one copy of any edition of Nancy Cock has come into the rooms in the last twenty years.   Cotsen was the underbidder for the Marjorie Moon-David R. MacDonald copy of a 1795 provincial edition with the imprint “For the booksellers” sold December 2 2014 at Sotheby’s New York.  Even though it was likely that this would be my last chance to add a Nancy Cock to the Cotsen, I was philosophical about the loss.

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Illustration of “Little Robin Red-Breast” from the “for the booksellers” edition of Nancy Cock previously owned by the collectors Marjorie Moon and David MacDonald.

It is an unwritten law of bibliography that if you publish speculations about a rarity no one has ever seen, a copy will rise up to bite you sooner or later.  In the 2013 Cotsen Occasional Press edition of Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-book, Brian Alderson and I reconstructed the contents of the lost volume 1 and ever since then we have been waiting for our come-uppance.  Instead, we have been rewarded for going out on a limb because the 1744 Nancy Cock turned up this fall.  And it’s a very special copy, having been passed down by three generations of English women as a family treasure.

The 13 January issue of the Times Literary Supplement features our account of its discovery and importance in the “Commentary” section.  But the essay is not illustrated with pictures from the book, and this post is!  Here is the title page spread, with the frontispiece of a cross schoolmaster punishing one of his pupils.   Notice that Nancy Cock is credited to the fictitious Nurse Lovechild, who is also supposed to have compiled Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-book.

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The first section of the book consists of twenty-three pages, each with two captioned etchings, many showing children at play.   Pages five and six  includes one of children playing a card game.  It looks as if the boy is about to take the trick and the pot.  The other not-so-innocent amusement shown is bird’s nesting, or climbing up into a tree to steal the chicks from its mother.  Even though this favorite boys’ pastime was considered rather cruel, it is illustrated fairly often in children’s books of the period.  This is one in Nancy Cock may be among the earliest ones.spread6-7

This opening, with the swan in full sail on the left, and boys trying out different ways of breaking their playmates’ backs on the right, is another of my favorites.spread12-13If some of you think you’ve seen the illustrations of the child musicians in the next opening somewhere else, you’re right.  It has been copied from this little set of prints by Hubert Gravelot.  But it was also adapted in the frontispiece for the second volume of Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-book.  The lifting of this particular image strongly suggests that the engraver George Bickham, junior may have been involved in the production of Read’s Nancy Cock, along with several other of the “little books” Brian and I discussed in “Nurse Lovechild’s Legacy.”

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The Gravelot original of the two child musicians.

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The copy of Gravelot in Nancy Cock.

 

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The same two musicians and friend face the title page of Tommy Thumb.

Nancy Cock’s second section consists of twenty-seven nursery rhymes and “Hey my kitten,” a poem imitating nurse’s prattle attributed to Alan Ramsay, chopped up as if it were several rhymes.  Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-book and Nancy Cock print a handful of the same rhymes, but the illustrations are not the same.  “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary” is a good example.  In Tommy Thumb, the picture has nothing to do with the text.   In Nancy Cock, the illustration brings out the bawdy undertones of the final line, the refrain of a famous song set to a famous tune in John Playford’s 1651 The Dancing Master.  The three men waiting on Mary are wearing horns, the cuckold’s signature headgear.

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Nowhere in the text is a monkey mentioned…

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Mistress Mary and her row of cuckolds.

One of the jolliest English nursery rhymes must be “Boys and girls come out to play.”  It is also among the earliest recorded, cropping up first in William King’s Useful Transactions in Philosophy, a 1709 satire on the Royal Society, then alluded to in Henry Carey’s “Namby-Pamby” (1725).  It also appears on page 32 of Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-Book accompanied with a etching of two children looking up at the full moon, and in Nancy Cock with a picture of three boys, one with a cricket bat, hallooing a boy standing in the doorway.  There’s a crescent moon shining in the upper right hand corner.

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Nancy Cock makes two appearances on facing pages in her song book, as the newly minted heroine of “Ride a cock horse” and of “Up hill and down dale,” a now unfamiliar rhyme long associated her.  The picture of Nancy as a demure milkmaid was adapted from the same set of Gravelot designs, perhaps hoping to distance her from the associations with the name “Nancy Cock,” which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries signified a girl who no better than she should be. Thomas Rowlandson seems to be playing on those connotations in his drawing of a luscious young laundry maid with a come-hither expression.nancycockspread52-53

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Thomas Rowlandson, “Nancy Cock clear starcher.” National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

I am extremely grateful to the Friends of the Princeton University Library, whose generous contribution helped make poassible the purchase of  this wonderful children’s book.  And with the addition of Nancy Cock’s Song-book, Cotsen needs just the R. Stockton Gammer Gurton’s Garland to complete the quartet of foundational English nursery rhymes…  Who knows?

Mother Goose: a Visual Icon and its Changes…

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A (Very) Short History of “Mother Goose” in Print

In a recent posting on the Cotsen blog, I talked about how American children’s books publisher McLoughlin Brothers depicted the “traditional” figure of Mother Goose and how the always-innovative McLoughlin didn’t hesitate to change, update, or appropriate this depiction for their own purposes.  In doing so, I talked in very general terms about the “traditional” associations of Mother Goose and the roots that stories connected with her have in folk tales. But no matter how much McLoughlin Brothers may have tried to lay claim to the figure of Mother Goose, they obviously didn’t invent her. What sort of traditional literary (and pictorial) antecedents for Mother Goose are they hearkening back to?

Title Page: "Histoire, or Contes du Temps Passe" (Amsterdam, 1697) Cotsen 25130

Title Page: “Histoire, or Contes du Temps Passe.” Amsterdam, 1697. (Cotsen 25130)

The earliest printed version of “Mother Goose” stories was published in Paris in 1697, as: “Histoires, ou Contes du Temps Passe” (“Histories, or Tales of Times Past”). Apparently, this was a popular book, because three unauthorized editions were published the end of the year, probably in Amsterdam. The title page of these versions (one shown at left) plays it cagey, noting: “Suivant la copie à Paris — “following the Paris copy” — with “à Paris” in large capitals, so a casual book-shopper (or unsuspecting cataloger!)  might not notice that this isn’t actually the Paris first edition.

Frontispiece: "Contes de ma Mere L'Oye" (Cotsen 25130)

Frontispiece: “Contes de ma Mere L’Oye” (Cotsen 25130)

Mother Goose isn’t mentioned on the title page either, but the book’s engraved frontispiece has the inset caption: “Contes de ma Mere L’Oye”: “Tales of Mother Goose” (as you can see at right). The frontispiece depicts a somber, oldish woman, telling tales to three children at night, while she spins in front of a roaring fireplace. (Note the bright candle, the cat happily sitting near the fire, and the appearance of the three children, pictured much like miniature adults, as was generally the practice at this time.)

With the perspective of book history, this figure is recognizable as Mother Goose, but it’s definitely a sterner version than we saw in McLoughlin Brothers’ (much later) books — a not altogether surprisingly one for its era.  Also worth pointing out is that “Contes de ma Mere L’Oye” was not first published as a children’s book, but rather as a literary form of tales popular with the French court.

Some thirty years later, the collection of tales was translated into English by Robert Samber and published as: “Histories, or Tales of Past Times” (1729). Numerous versions for children followed, including at least ten editions by Newbery & Carnan or Benjamin Collins, entitled: “Histories, or, Tales of Past Times, told by Mother Goose.”

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Title page and facing frontispiece of the 10th edition of “Histories,” Histories, or, Tales of past times told by Mother Goose. Collins ed. Salisbury, 1791. (Cotsen 32589)

As you can see from the photo above, Mother Goose is now cited in the title itself: “Tales … told by Mother Goose.” What had previously been suggested visually — that Mother Goose is the teller of the tales — is made explicit on this 1791 title page, which presents her as the nominal author.

And take a look at the woodcut frontispiece facing the title page in this edition. It looks an awful lot like the engraved frontispiece of our faux-Paris edition, doesn’t it?  The English publishers are hearkening back to the earlier French versions by using such a similar illustration.  And the frontispiece here also mentions Mother Goose in its inset caption — “Mother Goose’s Tales” — in a way that reinforces the idea that the teller of tales is Mother Goose herself.  Illustration reiterates text here, as is often the case in children’s books.

“Fairburn’s Description of the Popular and Comic New Pantomime…”

While cataloging new Cotsen Library acquisitions recently,  I came across another, quite different, version of Mother Goose: “Fairburn’s Description of the Popular and Comic New Pantomime, called Harlequin and Mother Goose, or the Golden Egg…” (1806).  The text of this little book within paper wrappers is not a tale itself, but rather a play-text and description of a staged pantomime production, a very popular form of English comedic theater, featuring songs and fairly outrageous slapstick humor.  (These stage productions often adapted familiar tales; “The White Cat,” one of the fairy tales collected by Madame d’Aulnoy, provided the basis for another popular English popular pantomime of this era.)

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Fairburn’s Description of the Popular and Comic New Pantomime, called Harlequin and Mother Goose … London: Fairburn, 1806? (Cotsen 30522)

Let’s take a closer look at the frontispiece illustration of Mother Goose.  Quite a different depiction than we saw above in the earlier books’ illustrations, or in the later McLoughlin versions!  The caption below tells us this is: “Mr Simmons in the character of Mother Goose.”  In other words, Mother Goose is portrayed as the man who played her role onstage in this pantomime, an interesting piece of gender and role reversal.

Samuel Simmons was one of the stars of the theater company, as evidenced by the 1807 playbill (shown below) for this production at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where he receives top billing. (Even though the top of the playbill was cropped off by a prior owner, the name of the company remains quite visible).  Note too, this pantomime was the second half of a “double-feature,” with “The Tempest”!  Such twin-bills were common in theater at the time, usually presenting abridged versions of one or both plays.  In an era before television or the Internet, the plays were indeed the thing in terms of popular entertainment.

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Playbill for Thursday, February 26, 1807 for the Covent Garden Theatre. [Playbill for The Tempest and Harlequin and Mother Goose…]. London, 1807. (Cotsen 7251157)

Another, apparently later, version of “Fairburn’s New Pantomine” in Cotsen’s collection instead pictures the era’s famous clown Joseph Grimaldi on its frontispiece and replaces the title page text, “embellished with a colored frontispiece of Mother Goose” with printed decorative rules. (Both seem to be variations of the undated first edition; two later editions note “2nd” and “3rd” editions, resp.)  Why this variation in what seems to be the first edition, though?  Perhaps for the sake of variety, or to freshen up the item for sale?  After all, the play opened in 1806 and ran for ninety two productions; buyers might not take a second took at an “old” booklet they had seen in the shop for months?  Or perhaps Grimaldi got better reviews?  Perhaps Fairburn decided that Grimaldi was a better sales incentive to a potential buyer of the printed “Descriptions”?  Lacking more evidence from the items themselves or from an external source, I can’t say for certain at this point.  But that’s something to work on a bit more, as is the question of dating Cotsen’s different versions of “Fairburn’s Description” with more certainty.

Printed materials like “Fairburn’s Description” or printed play-texts were meant to appeal both visually and textually to potential buyers, but they were ephemeral sports of publications not necessarily meant to last on the shelves of someone’s library; as such they often lack the basic sort of bibliographical information usually found in books, such as a date of publication.  The same is true of playbooks from Shakespeare’s era, as hard as that may be for us to imagine now — relatively cheap pamphlet-like publications, usually undated.

The correlation between the sales of printed items issued by Fairburn  (or printed playbooks authored by Shakespeare & Co.) and the sale of tickets to attend actual theater performances is a tricky one, as those who study Elizabethan playbooks and plays know all too well.  (Changes on the title-pages or covers of Elizabethan playbooks — aka. “quartos” — sometimes seem to have been made just to prompt sales, not necessarily due to any real changes in the text itself, although usually there were indeed “additions” to the text or a new production staged.)  But I think it’s safe to say that the combination of at least three printed editions of “Fairburn’s New Pantomine” and an opening run of over ninety performances of the play itself attests to noteworthy popularity of this version of “Mother Goose.”

And I hope you’ve seen how the depiction of the figure of Mother Goose changed over time, from the stern, story-telling woman of 1697 to the gender-challenging comic depiction in 1807 to the kindly old grandmother depicted by McLoughlin Brothers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Changes inevitably seem to come to even the most seemingly “traditional” literary or cultural figures, prompted by changing times.  “Traditional” doesn’t necessarily mean fixed, static, or unchanging.