![]() English readers would already have been familiar with Mother Hubbard, a stock figure when Edmund Spenser published the satire Mother Hubberd's Tale in 1590, as well as with similar fairy tales told by "Mother Bunch" (the pseudonym of Madame d'Aulnoy) in the 1690s. Mother Goose's name was identified with English collections of stories and nursery rhymes popularised in the 17th century. Later a compilation of English nursery rhymes, titled Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, helped perpetuate the name both in Britain and the United States. The term's appearance in English dates back to the early 18th century, when Charles Perrault’s fairy tale collection, Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, was first translated into English as Tales of My Mother Goose. This, however, was dependent on a Christmas pantomime, a successor to which is still performed in the United Kingdom. As a character, she appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. The opening verse of "Old Mother Goose and the Golden Egg", from an 1860s chapbook ![]()
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