 Starting with five pieces for piano duet in 1908–10, he then orchestrated them for a ballet in which two of the episodes were named after the fairy tale characters Sleeping Beauty and Tom Thumb.The ballet was first performed in Paris in 1912 and later that year in Chicago.John Newbery was once believed to have published a compilation of English nursery rhymes titled ", or, Sonnets for the cradle" some time in the 1760s, but the first edition was probably published in 1780 or 1781 by Thomas Carnan, one of Newbery's successors (and stepson).