Dame Talkative’s Old Sayings (ca.1824)

Jul 17, 2014



A book of wonderfully illustrated rhymes which, although they appear to be for children, often veer into the world of more adult themes. As well as a few thefts, at one point a boy threatens to beat a snail "as black as a coal", a lady-bird's children are said to be possibly dying in a house-fire, and Margery Daw is called a "nasty slut". The book seems to have been first published in 1818, with this being a later edition (a pencilled note on the inside pages indicating a date of 1824).