Mother Goose [with] Mother Goose Rhymes

London: George G. Harrap & Company Limited [printed at the Complete Press], 1915. First Edition. Wraps. Very good. Pogany, Willy. Two volumes, duodecimo size, [24] pp. in each volume. Hungarian illustrator Willy Pogany (1882-1955), a contemporary of monumental illustrators such as Edmund Dulac and N. C. Wyeth, was strongly influenced by botanical designs and the Art Nouveau movement; Pogany illustrated numerous fairy tales and children's stories, demonstrating a fine attention to detail and line work.

The "Mother Goose" stories have delighted children for centuries, making their first appearance as early as 1697 in "Stories or Tales of Times Past". The frontis for this volumes depicted an old woman spinning next to a fireplace and telling stories to young children. Eventually "Mother Goose" became associated more with nursery rhymes than tales, as in these two volumes.

The first, "Mother Goose", relates the tale of "Little Mother Goose" on the first thirteen pages (please note there are some references in this section to "a rogue of a Jew", showing the prejudices only too common at this time); the remainder of this volumes includes short rhymes titled "Cross-Patch", "Peter White", "Handy Pandy", "Humpty Dumpty", "Little Tom Tucker", "Tom, the Piper's Son", "Little Jack Horner", "Wee Little Winkie", "Polly Flinders", "Betty Blue", "Mary, Mary, quite contrary", and "Miss Muffet".

The second volume, "Mother Goose Rhymes", includes "Mary's Lamb", "Little Boy Blue", "Little Bo-Peep", "Jack and Jill", "Peter, Pumpkin Eater", "Hush-a-by, baby...", "Jack Sprat...", "Deedle, deedle, dumpling...", "Early to bed...", "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat...", "Simple Simon", "Great A, little a...", "Poor old Robinson Crusoe...", "Georgie Porgie...", "Dickery, dickery, dock...", "Goosey, goosey gander...", "There was a crooked man...", "There was a little man...", "I had a little pony...", "Ride a cock-horse...", "Old King Cole...", and "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe..."

As of this writing, neither of these two small "Mother Goose" books with Pogany illustrations are online. There is single volume titled, "Little Mother Goose" with several copies online, which may be a compilation of these two small volumes.

___DESCRIPTION: Both volumes bound using staples over wrap-around illustrated cardstock covers with yapped edges, the wraps serving as the title page, the first volume showing "Mother Goose" riding a flying goose, and the second volume with a depiction of the "cow jumping over the moon" with the four lines of the poem on the back wrap, every page of each volume with colour illustrations at the top portion of the page and the rhyme beneath; duodecimo size, unpaginated, each volume with six sheets folded once to twelve leaves, [24] pp. to each volume plus the printed (outer) wraps.

___CONDITION: Both volumes very good, the covers with light overall wear and soil, the stapled bindings strong, the interiors clean and bright other than a few spots of foxing, and entirely free of prior owner markings; the staples in both volumes have rusted (still holding the sheets securely) resulting in some rust stains in the gutters particularly in the middle of the volumes, the first volume with a small dark area at the top fore-edge corner of the front wrap and a very small chip out of the front fore-edge about half-way up.

___CITATION: Opie ("Three Centuries") lists these individually, nos. 154 and 155 (with the publication dates as 1915).

___POSTAGE: International customers, please note that additional postage may apply as the standard does not always cover costs; please inquire for details.

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