Publisher's Synopsis
A Facsimile of the Earliest English Nursery-Rhyme Book. One of the most famous of children's books, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song-Book (1744) contains some thirty-nine charmingly illustrated rhymes, many still current today ("Lady Bird," "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "London Bridge"). Tommy Thumb is now available in exact facsimile. Originally printed by master-engraver George Bickham, junior from copper plates, with alternative openings in red and black, it was financed by a group of West End booksellers that included Robert Dodsley. No copies of the first volume are known to survive and only two of the second have so far come to light, one in the British Library and one in the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University, reproduced here. This facsimile is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated essay in a separate volume, Nurse Lovechild's Legacy, by Andrea Immel and Brian Alderson. They describe the unusual process used to print Tommy Thumb, trace its convoluted publishing history, connect it to contemporary literary trends, and attempt a reconstruction of the lost first volume. There is a separate section of notes expanding upon those in the Opies' Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Vital evidence for Nurse Lovechild's Legacy was drawn from two other books: the American Antiquarian Society's copy of Isaiah Thomas's Tommy Thumb's Song Book, and George Bickham, junior's The Pretty-Book in the Toronto Public Library's Osborne Collection. Facsimiles of these two rarities complete the set.
