Mother Goose

8vo (6 5/8 x 4 1/8 in.; 168 x 105 mm). Full-page woodcut frontispiece with 4-line caption "High Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle...", numerous woodcut text illustrations (4-lines high) by Thomas Bewick, printer's colophon on last page (otherwise blank); some spotting and staining, contemporary manuscript additions (text and drawings) on 3 pages and on penultimate blank page. Boards, gold-stamped red leather title label on upper cover, in a black cloth slipcase with red leather title label. Together with: Mother Goose's Melody: Or, Sonnets for the Cradle in Two Parts. London: Printed and sold by John Marshall, [ca. 1782-1787]. 12mo (4 x 2 1/2 in.; 102 x 64 mm). Woodcut frontispiece, and text illustrations; lacking leaf C8 which is supplied in photocopy from another edition. Original Dutch floral boards, spine worn. In a cream half-cloth drop-box.

National Book League exhibition, Percy Muir ed., Children's Books of Yesterday (1946), 326; see Opie, Three Centuries of Nursery Rhymes, no. 21 and Alderson / Moon 34; Opie, Three Centuries of Nursery Rhymes no.  21

Very rare edition, based on the Thomas Carnan edition of 1780 (no copy known) and the Francis Power edition of 1791. Marshall acquired the rights to Mother Goose’s Melody in 1792 (see Alderson & Oyens 173). The watermark "Hook & Son 1803" appears on conjugate leaves B2,7.

The Opie collection has an 1816 edition and the Bodleian has an 1805 (Douce adds. 32 (1)) and a ca. 1800 (Douce adds. 36 (3)). The Opies remark "All editions are scarce (none appears to be known by more than a single copy), which in itself is evidence of their popularity."

The second copy is a very early edition, dated based on the contents of the publisher's advertisement. Worldcat reports copies at Bloomington (Indiana University) and Seattle (University of Washington).