Comments on: Darton’s Nursery Songs

By: Stella

Stella — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 16:25:19 +0000

I too found them all a bit creepy!

By: Liz Urwin

Liz Urwin — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 20:34:46 +0000

Really interesting! As a grown-up I find the illustrations intriguing but wonder whether kids actually liked them as they are frightening. And I wonder how they d be received by children today… and am curious to know how many parents still recite these rhymes -and if so to what extent they have changed/remained the same.

Liz

By: Christy Grigg

Christy Grigg — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 13:42:28 +0000

I found this fascinating. How much has changed since the days when these books were published – and yet how much has stayed the same, too. Rhythm and rhyme, vibrant illustrations are still the things that children love in their books today. Wonderful to read. Christy Grigg.

By: Nick Darton

Nick Darton — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 20:38:52 +0000

Thanks Robert and John. A couple of good questions that I can’t answer very well.

For a start my copies of the Opies’ books have disappeared! Were they lent or are they just misplaced? I’m not sure but will have to look for replacements.

On the matter of hand colouring of the plates I think it’s unlikely that they were done by young children and certainly not inexperienced ones. The standard of colouring is pretty good. That’s appropriate for a book that was fairly expensive in its day – ‘1/6d plain or 2/6d coloured.’ in the 1820s. )
The cheaper ‘toybooks’ that the firm produced were coloured much more crudely. There’s a story that they would be passed between family members , each with one colour and whoever had the least experience or talent would tackle the easiest part – perhaps the sky. Another maybe with brown for britches and tree trunks. And so on. While this may have been true for cheaper books, others selling at a higher price tend to be coloured much more carefully – either in-house or farmed out and coloured elsewhere before being returned for binding. Nick

By: John McCartney

John McCartney — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 20:53:21 +0000

Are your ancestor’s books referenced by the Opies Nick?

By: Robert Catt

Robert Catt — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 22:13:43 +0000

I enjoyed these enormously. Yes, the little husband. New to me. What’s going on there? And the cruelty: the poor grenadier – probably with PTSD and a history of loyal service – turned away from the door; the children being flogged in the shoe; the cat in the well; the child with the gun. Uneasy situations depicted in easy rhymes. The illustrations are wonderful. Is that boy trying to hypnotise the sheep?
Were these hand coloured and, if so, would this be by children working at home?
Thanks.

By: Nick Darton

Nick Darton — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 17:58:52 +0000

Thanks, Laurel
I hadn’t heard your version but have made a note of it and will see if the Opies or others recorded it. Of course, they may have other versions still.
I’m trying to compile a list of nursery rhymes strongly connected with London and learn about their meaning – often macabre. A short list to start with includes
As I was Going to Charing Cross
London’s Burning
Pop Goes the Weasel
Oranges and Lemons
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat

Any other suggestions?

Regards Nick Darton

By: Laurel

Laurel — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 15:23:03 +0000

The version of the cat poem I’m familiar with is a bit longer; it has four lines:

Sing, sing, what shall I sing?
The cat has taken the pudding-bag string.
Do, do, what shall I do?
The cat has bittten it quite in two.

By: Marcia Howard

Marcia Howard — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 21:04:11 +0000

There were only a couple of rhymes here that I didn’t know when I was growing up. I know many of the ‘stories’ behind the rhymes, but glad to say, my own nursery rhyme book didn’t have quite such scary looking pictures in it, than on the engravings above! My granddaughter age 6 knows all her nursery rhyme verses too, so hope other children are still taught them.

By: Nick Darton

Nick Darton — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 22:17:07 +0000

Thanks for your questions, Jill. I hope this answer gets back to you.

‘Who was Little Johnny Pringle for example? And what’s with the dead pig??’

It’s not one of the best rhymes but it goes like this.

Johnny Pringle had a little pig
It was very little, so not very big:
As it was playing on a dung hill,
In a moment poor piggy was killed.
So Johnny Pringle, he sat down and cried;
Betsey Pringle, she laid down and died.
This is the story of one, two, three,
Johnny Pringle, Betsey Pringle, and little piggy.

Regards,
Nick Darton