The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women, illustrated by as many engravings:
exhibiting their Principal Eccentricities and Amusements
The first book of English "nonsense verses" was published
by Harris and Son, at the Corner of St. Paul's Church-Yard, in
1820.The author is unknown.
Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen
This is the second earliest known book of the verses now known as limericks.
It was published, probably in 1821, by Harris's great competitor
in the production of children's chap books, John Marshall. Its
author seems to have been Richard Scrafton Sharpe, a Bishopsgate
grocer, and the drawings were later acknowledged as being by Robert
Cruikshank.
For both books, I have taken the text from Jean Harrowven's The Limerick
Makers (London, The Research Publishing Co., 1976) and the pictures
and order of presentation from Iona and Peter Opie's A Nursery Companion
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1980).
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