The history of nursery rhyme books can be traced back to the 1740s when London publishers started printing books specifically to instruct and delight children.

Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book for all little masters and misses: to be sung to them by their nurses till they can sing them themselves (full title), published in 1744, is the first known nursery rhyme collection.  It actually features versions of rhymes that we still sing today! This tiny book (7.6cm x 4.4cm) is volume one of two. Vol. 2  includes 39 rhymes such as ‘Bah, bah, a black sheep’, ‘Hickory dickory dock’, ‘London Bridge is falling down’ and ‘Sing a song of sixpence’.

The author has the penname “Nurse Lovechild”, however, inside Mary Cooper is credited as the book seller who may be the original author – possibly not of the rhymes as these would have been sung and passed on from household to household. Sadly no copies of Vol. 1 have survived, but there is one known copy of Vol. 2 which you can see pictured above which is held at the British Library.

Extra Fun Fact!

The 1788 edition begins with a letter to Nurse Lovechild, thanking her for bringing up the seller’s children and for compiling a collection of songs 'fit for the capacities of infants ... by which they are often lull'd to Rest, when cross, and in great pain’. It also asks her not to frighten the children by singing too loud or by telling the names of various bogeymen nor to injure them by swinging them by the arms!