This book brings together the most notable verse that has been written for children over the past five hundred years. Based on a fresh examination of the sources of children's literature, the book contains more than three hundred poems by well over a hundred named authors (a fifth of them American) arranged chronologically, from Chaucer and Lydgate to T. S. Eliot and Ogden Nash. The volume thus offers a conspectus of verse-writing for children in the English language; and the notes on the authors, at the end of the volume, which form almost a directory to those who have written the best verse for the young, deal in particular with the background to the poems given here. This book is intended for parents, lovers of poetry, children.

 

There are 439 pages in this book. This book was published 1994 by Oxford University Press .

Iona and Peter Opie are the authors of many books, including 'The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes' and 'The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse'. Peter Opie died in 1982. Iona Opie has, in partnership with her late husband Peter Opie, edited many acclaimed books of children's folklore, including The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. I Saw Esau, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and My Very First Mother Goose. Rosemary Wells has won many major awards for her books, which include the Max and Ruby stories, three titles about Edward the Unready and Felix Feels Better. About Mother Goose, she says, "These rhymes are a celebration of the English language - it's our history and it's wonderful. "