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Mother goose poem
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Mother goose book

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Mother Goose

Imaginary author of nursery rhymes and tales

This article is about the fairy-tale character. For other uses, see Mother Goose (disambiguation).

Mother Goose is a character that originated in children's fiction, as the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes.^[1] She also appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme.^[2] The character also appears in a pantomime tracing its roots to 1806.^[3]

The term's appearance in English dates back to the early 18th century, when Charles Perrault's fairy tale collection, Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, was first translated into English as Tales of My Mother Goose. Later a compilation of English nursery rhymes, titled Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, helped perpetuate the name both in Britain and the United States.

The character

Mother Goose's name was identified with English collections of stories and nursery rhymes popularised in the 17th century. English readers would already

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Mother Goose Rhymes

The initiator of the literary fairy tale genre, Charles Perrault (1628 – 1703) published a collection inspired by the old oral traditions of French and European folklore. It was released in 1697, and titled Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (‘Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé’). It was subtitled Tales of Mother Goose (‘Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye’). Perrault’s publication marks the first authenticated starting-point for Mother Goose stories.

In 1729 an English translation of Perrault’s collection appeared; Robert Samber’s Histories or Tales of Past Times, Told by Mother Goose. This work introduced Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Cinderella and other Perrault tales to English-speaking audiences. The first public appearance of theMother Goose storiesin the New World was in Worcester, Massachusetts. The printer, Isaiah Thomas reprinted Samber’s volume under the same title, in 1786.

The name ‘Mother Goose’ has been associated with children’s po

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If you’ve ever visited the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts, you may have stumbled upon the tombstone of Mary Goose, a woman believed by some to be the infamous author of countless cherished nursery rhymes: Mother Goose. Visitors toss coins at her tombstone, presumably to garner a bit of good luck, but the woman who was buried there in 1690 is undoubtedly not the original Mother Goose. According to local legend, it was the widowed Isaac Goose’s second wife, Elizabeth Foster Goose, who entertained her numerous grandchildren and other youngsters with songs and rhymes that were purportedly published by her son-in-law in 1719. Yet despite repeated searches for a copy of this collection, no evidence of its existence has ever been uncovered. Regardless, most historians agree that neither Mary nor Elizabeth created the stories that have passed on from generation to generation.

In fact, the etymology of the moniker “Mother Goose” may have evolved over centuries, originating as early as the 8th century with Bertrada II of Laon (mother of Charlemagne, the first emperor o