[.ca] The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (ISBN 0198600887)

A must for anyone interested in NRs and their origin:
This is the seminal publication on nursery rhymes, IMO. The Opies have been collecting information about nursery rhymes for more than 50 years. The second edition of their OD of NR was published last year (1997) and is greatly updated on the first. It includes indepth analysis of over 550 nursery rhymes. I've been unable to find a NS of my knowledge that isn't included in there. It makes a great present for a new-born, or his/her parents more like!

Simply wonderfull!:
It's simply wonderfull! More than 500 nursery rhymes, lullabies, riddles with intresting notices about origin. A real treasure for me and for my site: www.filastrocche.it.

Getting dated.:
This is the second edition, published in 1997, of the original Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, also by Iona and Peter Opie, which appeared in 1951. The Preface to the Second Edition explains that the authors gathered many new references over the intervening four decades, and thanks several correspondents for still further additions and corrections. There is, consequently, much more information in the apparatus of the newer edition. However, the revisions are not thorough enough; I still get the sense that I am reading a book put together in the years after World War II. For one thing, the Introduction appears to have been completely untouched; there are no references to any publication after 1951 (with the exception of references to two recent compilations by the Opies), and most date from the 1940's (for example, the reference on p. 3 to "two admirable Presidential Addresses by Lord Raglan to the Folk-Lore Society, 20 Mar. 1946, and 5 Mar. 1947"). Moreover, the discussion evinces a strange English elitism that may have seemed conventional six decades ago, but has not worn well with time. For example, the Opies seem to consider it a great fillip to the status of nursery rhymes that some of them can be shown to have been written by respected members of the English upper class; but we would consider these figures second or third-rate authors today (for example, Sir Charles Sedley). Also, there is too much blue-blooded in-group banter; for example, under "Bo Peep," one finds this assertion: "it is on record that in his early days Irving played the part of the wolf in Little Bo-Peep at Edinburgh." OK, who is Irving? If you want your book to be read by the generations that succeed you, you must not make allusions that are comprehensible only to your peers and coevals. Finally, the book is unnecessarily difficult to use. I STILL cannot find "Pop Goes the Weasel" in here; either I am an idiot or the indices are inadequate. I think the latter.

Simply wonderfull!:
It's simply wonderfull! More than 500 nursery rhymes, lullabies and riddles with great and interesting notices about origin.