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''Tommy Thumb's Song Book'' is the earliest known collection of British
''Tommy Thumb's Song Book For All Little Masters and Misses'' (1815 reprint at Archive.org)
{{authority control 1744 books British books Collections of nursery rhymes British nursery rhymes British children's books
''Tommy Thumb's Song Book'' is the earliest known collection of British nursery rhymes
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.
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, printed in 1744. No original copy has survived, but its content has been recovered from later reprints. It contained many rhymes that are still well known.
Publication
The book was advertised in the ''London Evening Post
The ''London Evening Post'' was a pro- Jacobite Tory English language daily newspaper published in London, then the capital city of the Kingdom of Great Britain, from 1727 until 1797.Cranfield, G.A. (1963). "The ''London Evening Post'', 1727–17 ...
'' for 17–22 March 1744, with the full title: ''Tommy Thumb's Song Book for all little Masters and Misses; to be sung to them by their Nurses 'till they can sing themselves. By Nurse Lovechild. To which is added, a Letter from a Lady on Nursing''; it was published by Mary Cooper of London.H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, ''The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature'' (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 534. No copy has survived, but a book of exactly the same title was published in 1788 by Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Massachusetts, who normally reprinted English books in the form he found them. A few weeks after the first publication Mrs Cooper produced a sequel, '' Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book Voll.'' ic''II,'' of which copies are extant.
Contents
The 1788 edition begins with a letter to Nurse Lovechild, thanking her for bringing up the author's children and for the 'laudable design' of compiling a collection of songs 'fit for the capacities of infants ... by which they are often lull'd to Rest, when cross, and in great pain.' It also asks her not to frighten the children by singing too loud or by telling the names of variousBogies
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
, nor to injure them by swinging them by the arms.''Tommy Thumb's song-book: for all little masters and misses: to be sung to them by their nurses till they can sing them themselves'' (Glasgow: J. Lumsden & Son, 1815) https://archive.org/details/tommythumbssongb00loveiala, retrieved 07/04/09.
It then moves to a section of illustrations of animals, with the representative sounds they make, which instructions for the reader to show the child the pictures and to make the sounds: 'by which means the child, in a short time, will be able to do the same.'
The final section is a series of nursery rhymes with the titles:
*The Features
* Baby on the Tree Top
* Patty Cake
*Penny a day
* London Bells
* London Bridge
*Tom Thumb and Nurse
*Robin and Bobbin
Notes
External links
''Tommy Thumb's Song Book For All Little Masters and Misses'' (1815 reprint at Archive.org)
{{authority control 1744 books British books Collections of nursery rhymes British nursery rhymes British children's books