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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A cat plays a fiddle, a cow leaps over the moon, and a few short lines stay with you.
In The Nursery Rhyme Book, Andrew Lang gathers old verses passed from mother to child, nurse to baby, and playground to playground. These are poems for saying aloud: lullabies, counting games, riddles, and nonsense. Their authors are mostly unknown, but their sounds and rhythms give them a lasting place in memory.
Little Miss Muffet sits with her curds and whey until a spider arrives. A boy and a girl climb a hill, and an old woman faces a bare cupboard. Alongside these small stories come rhymes for rocking, bouncing, tickling, and clapping. Each takes only a few lines to bring a character, a game, or a strange little world to life.
What you’ll discover
- Lullabies and playful rhythms Find verses shaped for rocking a child, clapping hands, and sharing the pleasure of sound.
- Small figures, whole stories Meet Little Miss Muffet and other characters whose troubles unfold in just a few lines.
- Nonsense without limits Follow a laughing dog, a musical cat, and a dish running away with a spoon.
- Words that stay Discover short verses whose sound and rhythm make them easy to learn by heart.
- Tradition passed aloud Explore rhymes carried between generations, gathered by Lang rather than written by him.
Who will love it
Parents, grandparents, teachers and storytellers will love this collection, as will anyone drawn to folklore, history, riddles and word games, or to the rhythm of spoken verse.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A punishment becomes a pleasure
- Political quarrels hide inside jingles
- Rhythm makes lessons easy to remember
- Tiny tales grow through repetition
- Riddles invite guesses and charms seek help
- Games put the words in motion
- Sound can tickle or soothe
- Many voices polish a rhyme
- History and play share a jingle
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The Nursery Rhyme Book in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Nursery Rhyme Book
Four and twenty blackbirds sing in a pie, and a frog rides a snail to woo a mouse in these old rhymes.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read20 languages
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“Jack and Jill went up the hill”
In short
Picture a boy shut in a closet as punishment. When his jailers open the door, they find him happy and unrepentant, sitting on a wooden box and reading the tattered picture books piled around him.
The Nursery Rhyme Book at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 35 min1 h 15 min fast, 1 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 22,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Old rhymes stay with us for life
Lang begins with a memory, not a theory. Reading the old rhymes brings back strange, lost pictures of his childhood.
Then he tells the closet story. He is locked up for some offense, and his jailers find him on the box, happy and unrepentant, with the books all around him. The punishment has turned into a treat. He knew Who Killed Cock Robin by heart before he could read, and he says he learned to read entirely without tears.
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Cite this edition
The Nursery Rhyme Book. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-nursery-rhyme-book.
The nursery rhyme book. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-nursery-rhyme-book
The Nursery Rhyme Book. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-nursery-rhyme-book.
@book{anonymous2026nursery,
title = {The Nursery Rhyme Book},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-nursery-rhyme-book}
}
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What is The Nursery Rhyme Book about?
It is a collection of traditional English and Scottish rhymes, including riddles, charms, alphabets, counting games, lullabies and nonsense. Andrew Lang adds an introduction about the history hidden in the verses and a closing note on their origins.
Who are Charley and Georgey Porgey in the rhymes?
Lang explains that Charley is Prince Charles, the exiled Prince of Wales who tried to win back his family's throne, and Georgey Porgey is the German king George. Their rivalry lives on in jingles.
Who wrote the nursery rhymes?
Nobody knows. Lang says the poets are unknown and that the rhymes grew from popular tradition, like ballads, riddles and proverbs. Some were printed three hundred years ago, and others were passed on by voice for longer.
The author
Andrew Lang
1844–1912 · Scottish poet and folklorist
Andrew Lang was a Scottish writer born in Selkirk in 1844. He lived in London and died in Banchory in 1912. He wrote poetry, novels, literary criticism, and works on folklore. He edited The Blue Fairy Book, published in 1889, and other fairy-book collections, including The Violet Fairy Book in 1901.
“Jack and Jill went up the hill”
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