The Curious Pages website (see here on Munro Leaf) led me to the 1938 Gay Mother Goose (“with drawings by Françoise”, apparently a successor to a 1936 Romney Gay Mother Goose. The cover:
As far as I can tell, the Mother Goose rhymes in the book are merely jaunty (and entirely traditional), though a modern reader can of course find all sorts of racy interpretations in things like “Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross”. So this is solidly from the pre-gay-consciousness era, like the gay Jell-O and the gay Jester Wools. A sample:
Yeah, I know: “pat it and prick it … and put it in the oven”, “hot cross buns”, and so on. But the words are just the traditional ones. And you can find phallic symbols in just about any illustration.
March 26, 2011 at 3:58 pm |
A true curiosity! Where do you find these jewels?
March 26, 2011 at 4:02 pm |
My vast unpaid staff — readers, friends, and family — find things for me. Alas, that means I now have thousands of postings in my to-finish queue.
March 28, 2011 at 5:42 am |
Comments spam is sometimes entertaining. This posting elicited a bit of spam from a waterfowl hunting site; goose was apparently the trigger.