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“I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since”*… Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, published in 1744 and now in the collection of the British Library, is the oldest surviving published collection in the genre.  Some of its rhymes are still familiar; others, like  “Piss a Bed” (above), have faded away.

While the mid-18th-century Tommy Thumb’s represents the oldest collection of nursery rhymes on paper, the oral tradition is, of course, much older. In a preface to his 1843 collection of English nursery rhymes, scholar James Halliwell-Phillips could pinpoint the origins of some verses in his collection to the 16th century but believed that some could be “ancient.” Later studies have dated most of today’s familiar rhymes to the 16th through 18th centuries, with some earlier outliers coming from the medieval period.

Tommy Thumb’s is a milestone for another reason; as the British Library writes, it “represents one of the very first attempts to make books in which children would delight.” It’s small—3 by 1 ¾ inches—and has an engraved illustration on every page; the library suggests that the scheme of alternating ink colors (red, black, red, black) may have been intended to add even more interest for young readers…

More at “Some Delightfully Scatological and Cruel Nursery Rhymes, From the Oldest Surviving Book of Them.”

* G.K. Chesterton


As we count to three bags full, we might recall that this date each year is UNESCO’s “World Book and Copyright Day.” 




April 23, 2016 at 1:01 am


Tagged with books, Children's Books, history, humor, literature, nursery rhymes, UNESCO, World Book Day

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