In 1873, when Evert Duyckinck and Charles Moreau published Illustrations of Mother Gooses Melodies, the melodies were still presented without musical notation. In the late 1880's, one American publisher, the McLoughlin Bros., did include music in its republication, apparently in a shrewd attempt to exploit the rising popularity of inexpensive pianos and parlour organs. (Now the melodies could actually be heard! The pure had gotten purer!) This novel publication, with its cover illustration of an anthropomorphic goose sitting at the keyboard, may also betray a recognition that the rhymes of Mother Goose, with their rustic eighteenth century manners, had lost some commercial appeal and needed to be spruced up a bit. It is very likely that the sweet, vaguely familiar tunes made up for the occasion were also intended to dissemble as restorations, standing as sentimental reflections of the rhymes, which are themselves, the hokum of the title notwithstanding, unsentimental.

THE tunes accompanying the rhymes on this website have been included merely as cheerful adornment. They are not intended as authentic recreations of historical settings, or musical interpretations of the text. They have been taken with permission from several MIDI websites credited below.