My Book of Nursery Rhymes (1974, Purnell, ed. Jane Carruth, illus. Hutchings Studio)

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My Book of Nursery Rhymes
Edited by Jane Carruth
Illustrated by Hutchings Studio
© 1974 Purnell & Sons Ltd.
Made and printed in Great Britain by Purnell & Sons Ltd., Paulton (Somerset) and London. 
First published 1974 by Purnell Books, Berkshire House, Queen Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire.
SBN 361 02950 0

This vintage collection of nursery rhymes is so warmly seventies! The editor, Jane Carruth, is a name I've come across frequently in relation to vintage fairy tale collections, but I can't find out anything about her, nor about the illustrator of this collection of nursery rhymes, Hutchings Studio. The book is part of a series by Purnell titled "My First Colour Library", the other titles being Animal Babies, ABC Parade, Fairy Tales, Numbers and Colours, Prehistoric Monsters, On the Farm, and Bedtime Stories.

This hardcover book is a pale yellowy cream in colour, and features an identical front and back cover, showing nursery rhyme characters in the same style as the illustrations inside the book, but likely by a different illustrator, as the characters on the cover are not the same as those in the interior illustrations. Compare, for example, Little Boy Blue (left: front cover; right: interior):

 

The endpapers are marked "HUTCHINGS" and show a group of people and animals gathered outside a thatched-roof cottage which bears the sign "Mother Goose Nursery".  A mouse runs down a clock in one window, Simple Simon (?) wears a glued on hat (?) in another window, Little Jack Horner sits eating a pie in the tree (looking mostly the same as he appears later in the collection), and three blind mice (also mostly similar) wander at the tree's base. The front loose endpaper shows a smiley seventies sun:

The title page features the same Old English (or perhaps Celtic-style) font that appears on the front cover, but the rest of the text throughout is utilitarian. There is no table of contents or index of first lines, so I've compiled one below (see end of post). There are 35 nursery rhymes across 40 pages (unpaginated). 

The rhymes themselves are mostly as they usually appear in nursery rhyme collections. The only differences that popped out at me were in "There was an Old Woman" where we get three sentences beginning with "She ..." and in a variety of rhymes where an unexpected 'And' comes into play:

  • "Little Miss Muffet" – "There came a big spider/And sat down beside her"
  • "Ride a Cock-horse" – "Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,/And she shall have music wherever she goes"
  • "I Had a Little Nut Tree" – "The king of Spain's daughter came to visit me,/And all for the sake of my little nut tree." 
The only other thing to note is that most of the rhymes have only one verse, but "Little Boy Blue" which includes the less common verse about who will wake him, and "Jack Sprat"  includes a verse about giving the bone to a cat. This collection also includes the less common variant of "Pat-a-cake" which makes the cake with a "T" "for Tommy and me" (rather than B for Baby).

The illustrations by Hutchings Studio had some very fun elements. They presented the most creative illustration I've ever seen for "This Little Pig" – it took me a moment to understand that the flowers were a foot, and the piggies its toes! 

I laughed out loud at several other amusing surprises – particularly the king calmly spanking a full-grown knave of hearts, and the two little dickie birds smacking heads while the worm they both wanted to eat quickly wriggles away. 


There were many other illustration details of interest, including:

  • the choice of simple tulips for pretty maids all in a row in "Mary Quite Contrary"
  • the decision not to include the hill in the illustration of "The Grand Old Duke of York" but instead to emphasise the "ten thousand men"
  • the old gentlemen looking near to a heart attack to see one of the black hen's eggs broken "Hickity Pickity"
  • a Celtic cross marking Banbury Cross in "Ride a Cock-horse"
  • the pussy cat dressed as a gentleman and holding the tail of a long-nosed mouse in his fist in "Pussy cat, Pussy cat" 
  • the very suave child owner of the little nut tree kissing the Spanish princess on her hand in "I Had a Little Nut Tree"
  • the owner of the little donkey that won't go tempting him with a carrot on a stick in "If I Had a Donkey".

My Book of Nursery Rhymes – Contents:

  • Hey Diddle, Diddle!
  • The Queen of Hearts
  • Little Miss Muffet
  • Hickory, Dickory, Dock
  • Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
  • Smiling Girls, Rosy Boys
  • The Grand Old Duke of York
  • Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
  • There Was an Old Woman [who lived in a shoe]
  • Hickety, Pickety
  • Yankee Doodle
  • Jack and Jill
  • Ride a Cock-horse
  • Simple Simon
  • Pussy cat, Pussy cat
  • Georgie Porgie
  • Polly Put the Kettle On
  • I Had a Little Nut Tree
  • Little Boy Blue
  • If I Had a Donkey
  • Mary Had a Little Lamb
  • This Little Pig
  • Hot Cross Buns
  • Jack Sprat
  • Rub-a-dub-dub
  • Rock-a-bye Baby
  • There Was a Crooked Man
  • I Love Little Pussy
  • Wee Willie Winkie
  • Two Little Dicky Birds
  • Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake
  • Humpty Dumpty
  • Little Bo-Peep
  • Three Blind Mice
  • Little Jack Horner


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