Composition and Publication
Potter was enthralled with nursery rhymes and enjoyed rewriting traditional rhymes to refer to her animal characters. Her early work was crammed with rhymes, as evidenced in the privately printed edition of The Tailor of Gloucester.
Her interest in rhymes was partly an attraction to the rhythms of older forms of English, and partly to the mysteries and riddles many rhymes presented. Potter took inspiration from childhood favourite Randolph Caldecott, especially his rhymes that gave prominent place to animals, and, in her 1902 correspondence with Norman Warne about the publication of Peter Rabbit, indicated she "sometimes thought of trying some of the other rhymes about animals, which did not do."
In the autumn of 1920, Potter proposed a book of nursery rhymes to her publisher Fruing Warne from those she had collected over the years. Titled Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes, Warne doubted such a collection would sell. In 1921 however, Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children's Work for the New York Public Library, visited Potter at her home, and expressed great interest in the book. Energized by her visitor's enthusiasm, Potter recommenced work on the rhymes. Fruing Warne realized he was not likely to receive anything else from Potter for the year and accepted Cecily Parsley as the new book for Christmas 1922.
By spring 1922, Potter had recopied the rhymes she wanted to use and sent them to Warne. Potter chose the pictures of the Gardening Guinea Pigs and Nanny Netticoat from an 1897 version of the book. A friend Louie Choyce provided the rhyme for the illustrations of the guinea pigs and another rhyme about a rose which was not used. Fruing Warne was a cautious editor and asked that the line about cutting off the tails of the mice in "Three Blind Mice" be dropped. Potter complied but later insisted it be restored because the rhyme was incomplete without it. In the illustration of Cecily Parsley brewing ale, Warne decided the drink should be brewed from cowslips rather than apples – apparently unaware of the alcoholic content in cowslip wine. Potter sent Moore an autographed copy for her doll, Nicholas Knickerbocker. The original cover picture depicted Cecily Parsley with a tray but the picture was too similar to the cover picture for Appley Dapply and was changed to Cecily Parsley pushing a wheelbarrow. The book was the last in the Peter Rabbit format.
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