The Tragical Death Of An Apple Pie
Last week, I bought a whole box of Bramley apples from Kent and so I take this opportunity to present The Tragical Death of an Apple Pie, an alphabet rhyme first published in 1671, in a version produced by Jemmy Catnach in the eighteen-twenties.
Poet, compositor and publisher, Catnach moved to London from Newcastle in 1812 and set up Seven Dials Press in Monmouth Court, producing more than four thousand chapbooks and broadsides in the next quarter century. Anointed as the high priest of street literature and eager to feed a seemingly-endless appetite for cheap printed novelties in the capital, Catnach put forth a multifarious list of titles, from lurid crime and political satire to juvenile rhymes and comic ballads, priced famously at a halfpenny or a ‘farden.’
A An Apple Pie
B Bit it
C Cut it
D Dealt it
E Did eat it
F Fought for it
G Got it
H Had it
J Join’d for it
K Kept it
L Long’d for it
M Mourned for it
N Nodded at it
O Open’d it
P Peeped into it
Q Quartered it
R Ran for it
S Stole it
T Took it
V View’d it
W Wanted it
XYZ and & all wished for a piece in hand
Dame Dumpling who made the Apple Pie
You may also like to take a look at
An impressive early Version of a Comic Book.
Love & Peace
ACHIM
Oh this apple pie baked in its crust
For its taste I do lust
Mr Kipling just will not do
Its apple is just like a goo
Crowned by a mound of Devon cream
Pray mamma this slice is far too mean
This is the best! I’ll try to remember and then recite it to my grandson Axton when he is a bit older, now being 23 months and interested in only tractors and such lately.
Where’s ‘I’ and ‘U’? Maybe ‘we’re’ sharing the pie?
Catnach. What a wonderful name.
Poor Pie, Died too young!!! Can WE have another one!?!? ??????