Mother Goose The Original Volland Edition — Story, Setting & Ideas

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Authors: Grover, Eulalie Osgood, 1873-1958 [Editor], Richardson, Frederick, 1862-1937 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Children's poetry; Nursery rhymes; Picture books for children Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 9,262

Reading time 41 min

Text sections 2

Mother Goose The Original Volland Edition — Story, Setting & Ideas can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 9,262 words, 41 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 18.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Children's poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #24623

This editorial note examines the 1919 Volland edition of Mother Goose, edited by Eulalie Osgood Grover and illustrated by Frederick Richardson, focusing on the foreword's claims about moral and literary value, the structural patterns of the rhymes, and the tension between nonsense and didacticism.

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The 1919 Volland edition of Mother Goose, edited by Eulalie Osgood Grover and illustrated by Frederick Richardson, opens with a foreword that explicitly positions the nursery rhymes alongside Shakespeare. The editor argues that these verses possess a “potent influence” beyond entertainment, claiming they instill “healthy moral” distinctions and train the ear for poetry. This framing immediately sets up a tension: the rhymes themselves are often anarchic, absurd, or violent—consider the farmer who tumbles after a raven’s croak, or the old woman who “could never be quiet” despite living on “victuals and drink.” The foreword’s earnest defense of moral utility sits uneasily beside the gleeful nonsense of the verses it introduces.

The Foreword’s Ambitions and the Rhymes’ Resistance

The foreword, likely written by Grover, asserts that Mother Goose rhymes help children distinguish “right and wrong, bravery and cowardice, generosity and selfishness.” Yet the rhymes themselves rarely deliver clear morals. “Jack Sprat” ends with a couple licking a platter clean—a scene of cooperation, not a lesson. “Old Mother Hubbard” presents a bare cupboard and a dog with no bone, but no resolution or moral tag. The foreword’s claim that children “unconsciously absorb” morality from these verses is a projection onto texts that are far more invested in rhythm, repetition, and surprise than in ethical instruction. The editor’s own language—calling the rhymes “nonsense melodies”—undermines her didactic framing.

Patterns of Repetition and Variation

Many rhymes in this collection rely on incremental repetition and structural variation. “Polly, put the kettle on” repeats the line three times before a twist: “Sukey, take it off again, / They’re all gone away.” The farmer on his gray mare uses a refrain of “Bumpety, bumpety, bump” and “Lumpety, lumpety, lump,” with the final stanza varying the raven’s vow. “There was an old woman sold puddings and pies” shifts from third-person narrative to direct dialogue. These patterns create a predictable yet flexible framework that invites participation—children can anticipate the repeated line and delight in the change. The editor’s arrangement groups such rhymes without commentary, allowing the structural play to speak for itself.

Domestic Objects and Animate Chaos

Several rhymes feature household items that come to life or act independently. In one, “the dish jumped up on the table / To see the pot swallow the ladle,” and the gridiron appoints itself “head constable.” Another has a cat in the cupboard, a bat under a hat, and a pig rocking a cradle. This animacy blurs the boundary between the domestic and the wild, the safe and the unruly. The foreword praises the rhymes for stirring imagination, but it does not acknowledge how often they depict a world where authority (the gridiron) is absurd and order is fragile. The illustrations by Richardson, though not described in the text, likely amplify this visual chaos, reinforcing the tension between the editor’s moralizing frame and the rhymes’ inherent subversiveness.

Readers approaching this edition should attend to the gap between the foreword’s claims and the rhymes’ actual content. The verses reward attention to pattern, repetition, and the unexpected. Rather than seeking moral lessons, consider how the rhymes construct a world where objects act, animals speak, and consequences are often comic. The Volland edition’s value lies not in its didactic packaging but in its preservation of these playful, resistant texts.

I’ve often thought the Volland Mother Goose, with its careful foreword on rhymes and morals, holds a quiet hand across the decades to Poems and Songs — Story, Setting & Ideas. Both share that gentle belief that a verse can be both simple and profound, a child’s jingle carrying a lifetime’s weight. A comfortable shelf-neighbor, I’d say. No fuss, just kinship.