Nursery Rhyme-Land (no pub. date, Collins, illus. Hilda Boswell)

Front cover of Nursery Rhyme-Land
Illustrated by Hilda Boswell
Published by Collins (London and Glasgow)
No publication date. No ISBN.

This hardcover collection of nursery rhymes published by Collins and illustrated by Hilda Boswell has no publication date but appears a lot older than many of her other works. Various internet sources place it as circa 1950s, but those I've seen online with dated inscriptions (usually from grandparents to children) seem to place it in the mid-1960s.

The front cover shows nursery rhyme characters dancing down a road, with a medieval town in the background. The endpapers feature the same characters, with the addition of what appears to be the Pied Piper, leading the way with Little Bo-Peep and Mary and her little lamb at his side. Two children from the 1950s or 1960s stand in the left corner of the frame, watching the procession.

Endpapers of Nursery Rhyme-Land

The front free endpaper features Simple Simon (wearing a name tag) holding a salt shaker and looking at a cuckoo clock. I was a bit perplexed by that one but a quick internet search taught me that there is a 'Simple Simon' verse where:

"He went to catch a dickie bird 

And thought he could not fail

Because he had a little salt 

to put upon its tail"

Making the bird a wooden cuckoo in a clock adds an extra level to the silliness. 

The title page shows a fair-haired girl with a nightgown on, holding this very book (a metafictional move also used on the back cover illustration of Hilda Boswell's Little Boy Blue Nursery Rhymes) while nursery rhyme characters leap from its pages and dance around her. Rather than "Illustrated by", the description is "Pictured by Hilda Boswell". Boswell signs her illustrations on the cover and endpapers of this collection as "Hilda Boswell" (compared with "H. Boswell" on the cover and endpapers of Hilda Boswell's Little Boy Blue Nursery Rhymes). The back cover shows a woman and young girl beside a baby in a bassinet, with a blue ball on the ground.

The first rhyme of the book appears to be an original poem (possibly by Boswell?) entitled 'Nursery Rhyme-Land'. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with Enid Blyton's Nursery-Rhyme Land story of 1945, but shows a similar idea of children visiting the land of nursery rhyme characters. Entering lines from the poem in a search engine gets no hits, so if anyone knows the source of the poem and is able to enlighten us, please add a comment below! 

The poem explains the appearance of a pied piper in the endpapers, as in the poem it is he who guides the children to "Nursery Rhyme-Land", "the land of fairy tale", "the Country of Delight". For those who are interested, this is the complete poem, with Hilda Boswell's illustrations. I particularly like the flying animals and fairies at the bottom!

'Nursery Rhyme-Land', an original poem

There are 55 rhymes in Nursery Rhyme-Land, across 56 pages, excluding title pages and endpapers. There is no contents page or index of first lines, so I've compiled one below (see end of post).

All the rhymes in this collection (except the first, 'Nursery Rhyme-Land') are published in identical form in Hilda Boswell's Nursery Rhyme Treasury. As Boswell's big treasuries are compiled into one in her Omnibus, the full set of rhymes appear there as well, and a selection of the works from the Omnibus appears in her small coloured treasuries. Some of the rhymes in Nursery Rhyme-Land also appear in identical form in Hilda Boswell's Little Boy Blue Nursery Rhymes; Hey, Diddle, Diddle! Nursery Rhymes; and other collections. So if you can't get your hands on this Nursery Rhyme-Land collection, the good news is that most of its typographical arrangements can be enjoyed in many other places. For a full list of Hilda Boswell's nursery rhyme collections, and links to my reviews of her other works, see Hilda Boswell's Nursery Rhyme Collections.

Nursery Rhyme-Land is a wonderful collection with much to enjoy. It has the loveliest illustration of 'Daffy-Down-Dilly' I've ever come across (with a pretty girl dressed in green and yellow, carrying a basket of daffodils), and quite the handsomest Bobbie Shaftoe!

Verse and illustration for 'Daffy-Down-Dilly'

Second verse and illustration for 'Bobbie Shaftoe'

The collection features a variant of 'Hickory, Dickory, Dock' I hadn't come across before, called  'Dickery, Dickery, Dock', which also changes the line "The clock struck one, the mouse ran down" to "The clock struck one and down he run", which is a more complete rhyme and fun to say, though imperfect for modern grammar. I enjoyed the look of delight on the face of the little boy watching the commotion as the mouse leaps from the clock, his sister jumps on a footstool, and their dog barks with excitement.

Verse and illustration for 'Dickery, Dickery, Dock'

Boswell conveys emotion in an amusing way in many other illustrations, too, from the lovesick look on the face of the pussycat sailing in 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat', to the sneaky longing of Jack of Hearts as he peers through the kitchen window in 'The Queen of Hearts'.

Title and partial illustration for 'The Queen of Hearts'

Also amusing was 'Rub a Dub Dub' (which most unusually features the potato the three men jumped out of looking on with hands on hips as a fourth man turns the knaves out of their tub) and the riotous children in the illustration for 'There Was an Old Woman [who lived in a shoe]', who are jumping from windows, fighting, pouring water on each other, putting a sibling's clothes through the washing wringer (while they're wearing them!), and climbing out of chimneys.

Boswell's illustrations are versatile, though – as well as many amusing touches, there is sweetness and simplicity (as in 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush', 'I Had a Little Nut-Tree' and 'One Misty, Moisty Morning'), dreaminess and poignancy (as in 'I Wish I Lived in a Caravan' and 'I Had a Little Pony'), and beautiful illustrations, like this memorable 'Hush-a-Bye, Baby'. 

Verse and illustration for 'Hush-a-Bye Baby'

There appear to be a few copies of Nursery Rhyme-Land for sale online, at quite varying prices.

Nursery Rhyme-Land – Contents

As noted above, all the rhymes in this collection (excluding 'Nursery Rhyme-Land') are published in identical form in Hilda Boswell's Nursery Rhyme Treasury, and some also appear in identical form in Hilda Boswell's Little Boy Blue Nursery Rhymes [LLB] and Hey, Diddle, Diddle! Nursery Rhymes [HDD], as indicated below. 

• Nursery Rhyme-Land
• Wynken, Blynken and Nod
• Little Boy Blue [LLB] [HDD]
• Humpty Dumpty [HDD]
• Hey, Diddle, Diddle! [HDD]
• Little Bo-Peep [HDD]
• One, Two, Buckle My Shoe [HDD]
• Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat [HDD]
• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son [HDD]
• Jack and Jill [HDD]
• Little Miss Muffet [HDD]
• Little Jack Horner
• Little Polly Flinders
• Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush [HDD]
• Goosey, Goosey, Gander [HDD]
• I Had a Little Nut-Tree [HDD]
• Little Tom Tucker [LBB]
• Georgie Porgie [LBB]
• A Dillar, A Dollar
• Daffy-Down-Dilly
• The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
• Old Mother Hubbard
• There Was An Old Woman [lived under a hill]
• One Misty Moisty Morning
• The Queen of Hearts [HDD]
• Little Betty Blue
• See-Saw, Margery Daw
• Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!
• Polly put the kettle on
• Hot-Cross Buns! [HDD]
• Three Blind Mice
• Handy-Pandy
• I saw a ship a-sailing [HDD]
• Jack Sprat
• Old King Cole [HDD]
• Hark, Hark, the Dogs do Bark
• Hush-a-Bye, Baby [HDD]
• Curly Locks!
• Dickery, Dickery, Dock!
• Simple Simon
• I Had a Little Pony [HDD]
• Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake [HDD]
• Bobbie Shaftoe [HDD]
• Mary Had a Little Lamb [HDD]
• Rub-a-dub-dub
• Ding, Dong, Bell [HDD]
• I Wish I Lived in a Caravan
• Sing a Song of Sixpence
• Ride a Cock-Horse [HDD]
• Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary [HDD]
• There was an Old Woman [who lived in a shoe]
• Where are you going to [HDD]
• Ba-a, Ba-a, Black Sheep [HDD]
• There Was a Crooked Man [HDD]
• Wee Willie Winkie