Beatrix Potter loved the countryside and she spent much of her otherwise conventional Victorian childhood drawing and studying animals. Her passion for the natural world lay behind the creation of her famous series of little books. A particular source of inspiration was the English Lake District where she lived for the last thirty years of her life as a farmer and land conservationist, working with the National Trust.
Beatrix Potter gathered material for a book of rhymes over many years. In 1917, when her publisher was in financial difficulties and needed her help, she suggested that Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes could be brought out quickly, using her existing collection of rhymes and drawings. The fact that the illustrations were painted at different times explains why the style occasionally varies.
www.peterrabbit.com
Appley Dapply,
a little brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard
in somebody’s house.
In somebody’s cupboard
there’s everything nice,
Cake, cheese, jam, biscuits,
— all charming for mice!
Appley Dapply
has little sharp eyes,
And Appley Dapply
is so fond of pies!
Now who is this knocking
at Cotton-tail’s door?
Tap tappit! Tap tappit!
She’s heard it before?
And when she peeps out
there is nobody there,
But a present of carrots
put down on the stair.
Hark! I hear it again!
Tap, tap, tappit! Tap tappit!
Why — I really believe
it’s a little black rabbit!
Old Mr. Pricklepin
has never a cushion
to stick his pins in,
His nose is black
and his beard is gray,
And he lives in an ash stump
over the way.
You know the old woman
who lived in a shoe?
And had so many children
she didn’t know what to do?
I think if she lived
in a little shoe-house —
That little old woman
was surely a mouse!
Diggory Diggory Delvet!
A little old man in black velvet;
He digs and he delves —
You can see for yourselves
The mounds dug by Diggory Delvet.
Gravy and potatoes
In a good brown pot —
Put them in the oven,
And serve them very hot!
There once was an amiable
guinea-pig,
Who brushed back his hair
like a periwig —
He wore a sweet tie,
As blue as the sky —
And his whiskers and buttons
were very big.
The End
FREDERICK WARNE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England
Website: www.peterrabbit.com
First published by Frederick Warne 1917
This electronic edition first published 2010
New reproductions copyright ©Frederick Warne & Co., 2002
Original copyright in text and illustrations ©Frederick Warne & Co., 1917
Frederick Warne & Co. is the owner of all rights, copyrights and trademarks in the Beatrix Potter character names and illustrations.
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-72-326581-8
Beatrix Potter, Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes
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