Showing posts with label Poetry for Young People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry for Young People. Show all posts

Tuesday

Acquisitions (121): William Blake


William Blake: A Grain of Sand (1967)



Thomas Phillips: William Blake (1807)

William Blake: A Grain of Sand (1967)
[Hato Hone St John Retail Store, Wairau Park - 9/9/24]:

William Blake. A Grain of Sand: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Rosemary Manning. Engravings by the Author. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1967.

Books I own are marked in bold:



Poetry Books for Children


  1. Poems for Young Readers (Bodley Head, 1964-1972)
  2. Poetry for Young People (Sterling Publishing, 1994- )
  3. Poetry for Kids (Moondance Press, 2016-2018)
  4. Classic Children's Poetry Collections (1845-2005)
  5. Children's Poetry Anthologies (1923-1997)

Books I own are marked in bold:




William Blake: Songs of Innocence (1789)
William Blake. Songs of Innocence and of Experience. 1789 & 1794. Ed. Geoffrey Keynes. 1967. Paris: The Trianon Press / London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Some years ago I bought three poetry books for children selected, respectively, from the works of John Clare, Robert Frost, and Edward Thomas. They were part of a series published by the Bodley Head between the mid-sixties and the early seventies, so I guess that I must have been one of the kids they were originally intended for.

There was something very pleasing about the concept, I thought, so when I came across the Blake book at the top of this post in a vintage shop a few days ago, I snapped it up. It only cost three dollars.

Blake, of course, was one of the first English poets to publish a collection of poems - Songs of Innocence (1789) - specifically for children. There'd been plenty of primers and readers containing versified instructions for the young before that, but it was the Romantic poets who first started valuing the untainted perceptions of children over those of world-weary adults.

Here, then, is an preliminary list of the Bodley Head "Poems for Young Readers" series, published roughly between 1964 (Robert Frost) and 1972 (G. M. Hopkins):




John Lane & Elkin Mathews: The Bodley Head (1887)

Poems for Young Readers
(Bodley Head, 1964-1972)


    Robert Frost: You Come Too (1964)

  1. Frost, Robert. You Come Too: Favourite Poems for Young Readers Selected from His Own Work and Edited by Robert Frost. 1959. Foreword by Eleanor Farjeon. Illustrated by Cécile Curtis. 1964. London: The Bodley Head, 1972.

  2. Edward Thomas: The Green Roads (1965)

  3. Edward Thomas. The Green Roads: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Eleanor Farjeon. Illustrated by Bernard Brett. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1965.

  4. John Clare: The Wood is Sweet (1966)

  5. John Clare. The Wood is Sweet: Poems for Young Readers Chosen by David Powell. Introduction by Edmund Blunden. Illustrated by John O'Connor. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1966.

  6. William Blake: A Grain of Sand (1967)

  7. William Blake. A Grain of Sand: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Rosemary Manning. Engravings by the Author. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1967.

  8. Edmund Blunden: The Midnight Skaters (1968)

  9. Edmund Blunden. The Midnight Skaters: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by C. Day Lewis. Illustrated by David Gentleman. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1968.

  10. Emily Dickinson: A Letter to the World (1968)

  11. Emily Dickinson. A Letter to the World: Poems for Young Readers chosen and introduced by Rummer Godden. Illustrated by Prudence Seward. London: The Bodley Head, 1968.

  12. Robert Herrick: The Music of a Feast (1968)

  13. Robert Herrick. The Music of a Feast: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Eleanor Graham. Illustrated by Lynton Lamb. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1968.

  14. Christina Rossetti: Doves and Pomegranates (1969)

  15. Christina Rossetti. Doves and Pomegranates: Poems for Young Readers Chosen by David Powell. Introduction by Naomi Lewis. Illustrated by Margery Gill. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1969.

  16. R. L. Stevenson: Home from Sea (1968)

  17. R. L. Stevenson. Home from Sea: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Ivor Brown. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1970.

  18. William Wordsworth: The Solitary Song (1968)

  19. William Wordsworth. The Solitary Song: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Edmund Blunden. Illustrated by David Gentleman. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1970.

  20. Emily Bronte: A Peculiar Music (1971)

  21. Emily Brontë. A Peculiar Music: Poems for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Naomi Lewis. With two facsimiles. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1971.

  22. Gerard Manley Hopkins: Look up at the skies! (1972)

  23. Gerard Manley Hopkins. Look up at the skies!: Poems and Prose for Young Readers Chosen and Introduced by Rex Warner. Illustrated by Yvonne Skargon. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1972.

And here they all are again, arranged alphabetically this time:


John Lane & Elkin Mathews: The Bodley Head (1887)


  1. William Blake: A Grain of Sand (1967)
  2. Edmund Blunden: The Midnight Skaters (1968)
  3. Emily Brontë: A Peculiar Music (1971)
  4. John Clare: The Wood is Sweet (1966)
  5. Emily Dickinson: A Letter to the World (1968)
  6. Robert Frost: You Come Too (1964)
  7. Robert Herrick: The Music of a Feast (1968)
  8. Gerard Manley Hopkins: Look up at the Skies! (1972)
  9. Christina Rossetti: Doves and Pomegranates (1969)
  10. R. L. Stevenson: Home from Sea (1970)
  11. Edward Thomas: The Green Roads (1965)
  12. William Wordsworth: The Solitary Song (1970)

Were there more in the series? I'm not really sure. I haven't been able to locate any other titles online, but that's not to say there weren't any. There's also a 1973 Bodley Head anthology predicated on this idea of "Poetry for the Young":

Leonard Clark, ed. Flutes and Cymbals (1973)
Flutes and Cymbals: Poetry for the Young Selected by Leonard Clark. Illustrated by Shirley Hughes. London: The Bodley Head, 1973.

The inspiration for the series seems to have come, in the first place, from Robert Frost, who published a selection of his own poems for children in 1959. It was reissued with a new preface and new illustrations in the UK in 1964 by the Bodley Head as the first of their books of "Poems for Young Readers". After that came Frost's old friend Edward Thomas, then those stalwarts of the English pastoral tradition, John Clare and Blake.


Robert Frost, ed. You Come Too (1959)
Robert Frost. You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Young Readers. Wood engravings by Thomas W. Nason. 1959. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1960.

I can't help wondering just how much success these books actually enjoyed: after the first few titles, that is. They sound to me like the kind of thing more calculated to appeal to adults than children - they certainly please me - but the idea of turning children on to poetry through the works of such canonical authors might now seem a bit of a stretch.




Wallace Stevens. Poetry for Young People (2004)
Wallace Stevens. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John N. Serio. Illustrated by Robert Gantt Steele. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2004.

Perhaps not, though. Another even more ambitious attempt to pull off this feat is the "Poetry for Young People" series initiated by Sterling Publishing Co. in New York, and continued by a number of associated imprints, including Scholastic and Union Square Kids. I only have two of their books, but there are a great many more listed online.

Honestly, though, of all the poets to try and adapt for "young people", surely Wallace Stevens is one of the most unlikely? But they've certainly made a valiant attempt, and the illustrations are really quite sumptuous.


William Carlos Williams. Poetry for Young People (2004)
William Carlos Williams. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. Illustrated by Robert Crockett. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2004.

The apparent simplicity of much of W. C. Williams's verse makes him (perhaps) an easier proposition, but one still has to applaud the never-say-die enthusiasm of the overall series editors, determined to educate and uplift schoolchildren everywhere!

Here, then, is a preliminary listing of the "Poetry for Young People" series, published more or less continuously between 1994 (starting, again, with Robert Frost) and the present day:




Poetry for Young People
(Sterling Publishing et al., 1994- )

    Authors:


    Maya Angelou. Poetry for Young People (2007)

  1. Maya Angelou. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Edwin Graves Wilson. Illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue. New York: Union Square Kids, 2007.

  2. William Blake. Poetry for Young People (2007)

  3. William Blake. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John Maynard. Illustrated by Alessandra Cimatoribus. New York: Union Square Kids, 2007.

  4. Robert Browning. Poetry for Young People (2007)

  5. Robert Browning. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Eileen Gillooly. Illustrated by Joel Spector. New York: Union Square Kids, 2007.

  6. Lewis Carroll. Poetry for Young People (2000)

  7. Lewis Carroll. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Edward Mendelson. Illustrated by Eric Copeland. New York: Union Square Kids, 2000.

  8. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Poetry for Young People (2003)

  9. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Poetry for Young People. Ed. James Engell. Illustrated by Harvey Chan. New York: Union Square Kids, 2003.

  10. Emily Dickinson. Poetry for Young People (1994)

  11. Emily Dickinson. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Frances Schoonmaker Bolin. Illustrated by Chi Chung. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1994.

  12. Robert Frost. Poetry for Young People (1994)

  13. Robert Frost. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Gary D. Schmidt. Illustrated by Henri Sorensen. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1994.

  14. Langston Hughes. Poetry for Young People (2006)

  15. Langston Hughes. Poetry for Young People. Ed. David Roessel & Arnold Rampersad. Illustrated by Benny Andrews. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2006.

  16. Rudyard Kipling. Poetry for Young People (2000)

  17. Rudyard Kipling. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Eileen Gillooly. Illustrated by Jim Sharpe. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2000.

  18. Edward Lear. Poetry for Young People (2001)

  19. Edward Lear. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Edward Mendelson. Illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2001.

  20. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poetry for Young People (1998)

  21. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Frances Schoonmaker. Illustrated by Chad Wallace. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1998.

  22. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Poetry for Young People (1999)

  23. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Frances Schoonmaker. Illustrated by Mike Bryce. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1999.

  24. Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry for Young People (1995)

  25. Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Brod Bagert. Illustrated by Carolynn Cobleigh. New York: Union Square Kids, 1995.

  26. Carl Sandburg. Poetry for Young People (1995)

  27. Carl Sandburg. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Frances Schoonmaker Bolin. Illustrated by Steven Arcella. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1995.

  28. William Shakespeare. Poetry for Young People (2000)

  29. William Shakespeare. Poetry for Young People. Ed. David Scott Kastan & Marina Kastan. Illustrated by Glenn Harrington. New York: Union Square Kids, 2000.

  30. Wallace Stevens. Poetry for Young People (2004)

  31. Wallace Stevens. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John N. Serio. Illustrated by Robert Gantt Steele. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2004.

  32. Robert Louis Stevenson. Poetry for Young People (2000)

  33. Robert Louis Stevenson. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Frances Schoonmaker. Illustrated by Lucy Corvino. New York: Union Square Kids, 2000.

  34. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Poetry for Young People (2003)

  35. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John Maynard. Illustrated by Allen Garns. New York: Union Square Kids, Inc., 2003.

  36. Walt Whitman. Poetry for Young People (1997)

  37. Walt Whitman. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Jonathan Levin. Illustrated by Jim Burke. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1997.

  38. William Carlos Williams. Poetry for Young People (2004)

  39. William Carlos Williams. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. Illustrated by Robert Crockett. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2004.

  40. Wiliam Wordsworth. Poetry for Young People (2003)

  41. Wiliam Wordsworth. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Alan Liu. Illustrated by James Muir. New York: Union Square Kids, 2003.

  42. William Butler Yeats. Poetry for Young People (2002)

  43. William Butler Yeats. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Jonathan Allison. Illustrated by Glenn Harrington. New York: Union Square Kids, 2002.

    Anthologies:


    Poetry for Young People: African American Poetry (2013)

  1. African American Poetry. Poetry for Young People. Ed. Arnold Rampersad & Marcellus Blount. Illustrated by Karen Barbour. New York: Union Square Kids, 2013.

  2. Poetry for Young People: American Poetry (2002)

  3. American Poetry. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John Hollander. Illustrated by Sally Wern Comport. New York: Scholastic, 2002.

  4. Poetry for Young People: Animal Poems (2004)

  5. Animal Poems. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John Hollander. Illustrated by Simona Mulazzani. New York: Union Square Kids, 2004.

  6. Poetry for Young People: The Seasons (2004)

  7. The Seasons. Poetry for Young People. Ed. John N. Serio. Illustrated by Robert Crockett. New York: Union Square Kids, 1994.

And here's another offshoot for even younger readers, the "Poetry for Kids" series:




Poetry for Kids
(Moondance Press, 2016-2018)


    Emily Dickinson. Poetry for Kids (2016)

  1. Emily Dickinson. Poetry for Kids. Ed. Susan Snively. Illustrated by Christine Davenier. New York: Moondance Press, Inc., 2016.

  2. Robert Frost. Poetry for Kids (2017)

  3. Robert Frost. Poetry for Kids. Ed. Jay Parini. Illustrated by Michael Paraskevas. New York: Moondance Press, Inc., 2017.

  4. Carl Sandburg. Poetry for Kids (2017)

  5. Carl Sandburg. Poetry for Kids. Ed. Kate Benzel. Illustrated by Robert Crawford. New York: Moondance Press, Inc., 2017.

  6. William Shakespeare. Poetry for Kids (2018)

  7. William Shakespeare. Poetry for Kids. Ed. Marguerite Tassi. Illustrated by Merce Lopez. New York: Moondance Press, Inc., 2018.

  8. Walt Whitman. Poetry for Kids (2017)

  9. Walt Whitman. Poetry for Kids. Ed. Karen Karbiener. Illustrated by Kate Evans. New York: Moondance Press, Inc., 2017.

You'll notice some similarities in these two series, the British and the American. Nearly half of the authors in the Bodley Head list recur: Blake, Dickinson, Frost, Stevenson, and Wordsworth. There are also a number of other British luminaries in the American list: Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rudyard Kipling, Edward Lear, William Shakespeare, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.




Robert Louis Stevenson: A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)
Robert Louis Stevenson. A Child’s Garden of Verses. 1885. Illustrated by A. H. Watson. London & Glasgow: Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1958.

There are, of course, innumerable other poetry books for children. Only a few can really stand up against Blake's Songs of Innocence, however. I suppose everyone has their own personal list. Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses, pictured above, would certainly figure in mine.

Dare I say it, though? For all the delightful poems included there - "The Land of Counterpane", for instance - it now reads rather ... racist. There's lot of silly stuff about foreign children being inferior to British ones, and other tedious tropes of the time. O tempora, o mores!

Besides that, my own select handful of books would have to include the following:



    Hilaire Belloc: Cautionary Tales for Children (1907)

  1. Hilaire Belloc. Cautionary Verses: Illustrated Album Edition. ['Cautionary Tales for Children' (1907), illustrated by B. T. B.; 'New Cautionary Tales' (1930), pictures by Nicolas Bentley; 'The Bad Child's Book of Beasts' (1896), illustrated by B. T. B.; 'More Beasts for Worse Children' (1897), illustrated by B. T. B.; 'A Moral Alphabet' (1899), illustrated by B. T. B.; 'More Peers' (1911), illustrated by B. T. B.; 'Ladies and Gentlemen: For Adults Only and Mature at That' (1932), pictures by Nicolas Bentley.] 1940. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1957.

  2. Belloc is a blatant racist, too. But somehow it doesn't sting so much, because he so obviously hates everyone - with the possible exception of his old partner in crime G. K. Chesterton, and maybe the odd wine-bibbing rural French Curé.

    He's terribly amusing about it, though: all those ghastly children being burned to death and eaten by lions and so on as a result of their trifling misdeeds.

    It's exactly the kind of stuff I liked most as a child. And now I've reached adulthood ("the joys of childhood are great, but they are nothing to the joys of adultery," as the old gag has it) I like it even more.




    Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark (1876)

  3. Lewis Carroll. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark: The Definitive Edition. Illustrated by Henry Holiday. 1876. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1962. Introduction by Adam Gopnik. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006.

  4. This one is possibly a bit too laboured for any but the most persistent and sophisticated children. If it was written for them - and not for his fellow mathematicians - he rather missed the mark.

    But it's a great work anyway, regardless of who it's intended for. And I think myself that the best way to read it is with Martin Gardner's illuminating commentary and notes.




    Charles Causley: Collected Poems for Children (1996)

  5. Charles Causley. Collected Poems for Children. Illustrated by John Lawrence. Afterword by Ted Hughes. Macmillan Children's Books. 1996. Foreword by Roger McGough. 2016. Macmillan Classics. London: Pan Macmillan, 2020.

  6. This is a more recent discovery. I have to say that Charles Causley's "grown-up" poems never did much for me, though I've certainly enjoyed reading some of his anthologies over the years. I'd (wrongly) thought that this collection of his children's poems might be a bit old-fashioned and twee.

    Guess what? It's not. It's great! All the praise on the back cover is richly deserved. It's become one of my go-to bedside books, in fact. It's not sentimental at all, just expertly rhymed and very pithy.




    Walter de la Mare: Peacock Pie (1913)

  7. Walter de la Mare. Peacock Pie: A Book of Rhymes. 1913. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. London: Faber, 1946.

  8. This was probably Walter de la Mare's finest hour as a poet. He wrote voluminously before and since, but never quite hit this precise note again. It's a book you can read and reread and still find something new in.

    Speaking personally, I tend to find his prose - particularly some of the ghostlier short stories - more beguiling than his verse. But not this book. This is better than anything else he ever wrote in any form - with the possibly exception of his classic children's anthology Come Hither, with its elliptical introduction and overflowing sections of oblique and erudite notes.




    T. S. Eliot: A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)

  9. T. S. Eliot. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. 1939. Decorations by Nicolas Bentley. 1940. London: Faber, 1967.

  10. I guess that Andrew Lloyd Webber has robbed this book of any simple charm it ever contained. It's still eminently quotable, and there are some good poems here and there, but I always felt a slight air of condescension about it. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but I tend to trust the intuitions I had about such things as a child.




    Harry Graham: Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes (1899)

  11. Harry Graham. When Grandmama Fell Off the Boat: The Best of Harry Graham, Inventor of Ruthless Rhymes. 1899 & 1930. Foreword by Virginia Graham. Introduction by Miles Kington. Methuen Humour Classics. London: Methuen London Ltd., 1986.

  12. I'm afraid that I would probably never have read this work if it hadn't been for George Orwell's essay about Salvador Dali, where he compares some of the surrealist artist's more shocking effects with the mordant black comedy of Harry Graham.

    It certainly is amusing - in parts, at least. Does it advance the world's thought? No, I wouldn't have thought so, but there are never enough books in the world that actually make you laugh, so I still keep a place for it on the shelf.




    Dr Heinrich Hoffmann: A Child's Garden of Verses (1845)

  13. Dr Heinrich Hoffmann. The English Struwwelpeter. 1845. Munich & Andover, Hampshire: arsEdition & Ragged Bears Ltd., 1994.

  14. I have to say that there's probably never been a moment since I first read this book as a small boy that I haven't cringed with sympathetic agony at the merest mention of little Suck-a-Thumb and his awful fate at the hands of the "great, long, red-legged scissorman."

    No subsequent horror film can match it - no Silence of the Lambs, no Shining. It caught my attention once and for all. The rest of the book is pretty gruesome too, but not on that same level of involuntary reflex.

    Should children read things like this at such a formative age? It's hard to say, really. If, as Franz Kafka puts it, "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us," then Struwwelpeter certainly served that purpose for me. And that has made all the difference ...




    Ted Hughes: Collected Poems for Children (1885)

  15. Ted Hughes. Collected Poems for Children. Pictures by Raymond Briggs. 2005. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
    1. The Mermaid's Purse (1999)
    2. The Cat and the Cuckoo (1987)
    3. Meet my Folks! (1961)
    4. Nessie the Mannerless Monster (1964)
    5. Moon-Whales and Other Moon Poems (1976)
    6. Under the North Star (1981)
    7. from What is the Truth? (1984)
    8. Season Songs (1976)

  16. I'm not quite sure about this book. It doesn't have the same effortless charm as Charles Causley's wonderful collection - but then, on the other hand, one could say that there was never really a moment when Ted Hughes wasn't writing for kids. In many ways Crow is more of a children's book than any of the collections included here.

    One thing, however, is for certain: the beauty of the book design, with its innumerable images by Raymond Briggs would guarantee it a place of honour on any bibliophile's bookshelf.




    Edward Lear: Nonsense Songs and Stories (1871)

  17. Edward Lear. Nonsense Songs and Stories. 1871. Introduction by Sir Edward Strachey. 1894. London: Chancellor Press, 1984.

  18. There are, of course, many places to read Edward Lear. Vivien Noakes' recent edition of his Complete Nonsense and Other Verse (2001), now available in full in Penguin Classics, gets about as close to perfection as I can imagine.

    There's something to be said for sampling his mad, sad poems in their original context, though. Who can deny his status as one of the most loveable of all English poets - along, perhaps, with the immortal John Clare?

    I love Lewis Carroll's books and poems, but the man himself could not be said to enchant me in the same way as the adorable, cat-loving Mr. Lear.




    A. A. Milne: When We Were Very Young & Now We Are Six (1924 & 1927)

  19. A. A. Milne. The World of Christopher Robin: Containing When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. Illustrated by E. H. Shepard. 1924, 1927, 1959. London: Methuen Children’s Books, 1972.

  20. The recent British film Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) did a wonderful job of exploring the whole ghastly mess caused by A. A. Milne's decision to pimp out his small boy as a kind of living billboard for his own writing. The movie tries to imply that it was mostly his absentee Mummy's fault, but the fact remains that, however reluctantly, Milne went along with every agonising second of it.

    And, of course, his miserably bullied son - himself an accomplished writer in later life - never really forgave him for it.

    And yet, can anyone forget these poems? Once heard, they're stuck to you for good - the literary equivalent of earworms: "Hush, hush, whisper who dares, / Christopher Robin is saying his prayers" or "James James / Morrison Morrison / Weatherby George Dupree / Took great / Care of his Mother / Though he was only three."

    P. G. Wodehouse did a wonderful hatchet job on them in the Jeeves novel The Mating Season (1949) where Bertie finds himself slated to recite Christopher Robin poems at the village fête: a fate worse than death, as one might say.

    It was undoubtedly meant as a belated revenge for Milne's hysterical - and quite unjustified - wartime denunciations of Wodehouse as a Nazi-sympathiser and collaborator ...
    "Very good," I said coldly. "In that case, tinkerty tonk."

    And I meant it to sting.

Walter de la Mare, ed.: Come Hither (1923)


I'm concluding with a section listing some handy anthologies, for those who prefer them to standalone volumes:




Iona & Peter Opie, ed.: The Oxford Book of Children's Verse (1973)


  1. Baring-Gould, William S. & Ceil Baring-Gould. The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes Old and New, Arranged and Explained. Illustrated by Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish, and Early Historical Woodcuts. With Chapter Decorations by E. M. Simon. New York: Bramhall House, 1962.

  2. Blishen, Edward, ed. Oxford Book of Poetry for Children. Illustrations by Brian Wildsmith. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.

  3. Carroll, Lewis. The Humorous Verse of Lewis Carroll. [Formerly: 'The Collected Verse of Lewis Carroll']. With illustrations by Sir John Tenniel, Arthur B. Frost, Henry Holiday, Harry Furniss, & the Author. 1933. New York: Dover Publications. Inc., 1960.

  4. Causley, Charles, ed. The Puffin Book of Magic Verse. Illustrated by Barbara Swiderska. Puffin Books. London: Penguin, 1974.

  5. de la Mare, Walter, ed. Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages. 1923. New edition. 1928. Wood-engravings by Diana Bloomfield. 1957. New edition. 1960. London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1962.

  6. de la Mare, Walter, ed. Tom Tiddler’s Ground: A Book of Poetry for Children. 1931. Foreword by Leonard Clark. Illustrated by Margery Gill. 1961. London: The Bodley Head, 1975.

  7. Graham, Eleanor, ed. A Puffin Quartet of Poets: Eleanor Farjeon, James Reeves, E. V. Rieu & Ian Serraillier. Illustrated by Diana Bloomfield. 1958. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.

  8. Hall, Donald, ed. The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse in America. 1985. Oxford Paperbacks. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

  9. Heaney, Seamus, & Ted Hughes, ed. The Rattle Bag: An Anthology of Poetry. 1982. London: Faber, 1985.

  10. Heaney, Seamus, & Ted Hughes, ed. The School Bag. London: Faber, 1997.

  11. Hughes, Ted. Collected Animal Poems. 4 vols. London: Faber, 1995.
    1. The Iron Wolf. Illustrated by Chris Riddell
    2. What is the Truth? 1984. Illustrated by Lisa Flather
    3. A March Calf. Illustration by Lisa Flather
    4. The Thought-Fox

  12. Holbrook, David, ed. Iron / Honey / Gold: The Uses of Verse. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.

  13. Jackson, Holbrook, ed. Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense. 1947. Introduced by Quentin Blake. Illustrated by the Author and Hand-Coloured for This Edition. 1846, 1871, 1872, 1877, 1895. London: Folio Society, 1996.

  14. Opie, Iona & Peter, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. 1951. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

  15. Opie, Iona & Peter, ed. The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. Illustrations by Joan Hassall. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955.

  16. Opie, Iona & Peter, ed. The Puffin Book of Nursery Rhymes. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. 1963. A Puffin Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.

  17. Opie, Iona & Peter, ed. The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse. 1973. London: Book Club Associates, 1978.

  18. Opie, Iona. Tail Feathers from Mother Goose: The Opie Rhyme Book. Illustrated by Maurice Sendak et al. London: Walker Books Ltd., 1988.

  19. Smith, Janet Adam, ed. The Faber Book of Children’s Verse. 1953. London: Faber, 1968.