Mother Goose is the first book to which most boys and girls are introduced. It comes to them long before reading sets in, and it creates for them a whole new world of enchanting characters, ranging from Jack Horner and Humpty Dumpty to Cock Robin and The Knave of Hearts. Mrs. Becker calls them "the liveliest people in English literature. . . .You meet them for a moment and remember them forever."

Around the figure of Mother Goose a thousand legends have been woven. No one knows whether her origin was in France, England, America, or Italy; whether she "lived" many years before Christ, or in Eighteenth Century Europe, or in Colonial America. The poems, in contrast to the mystery surrounding their authorship, are vivid and alive. Each one of them is a little drama, a miniature masterpiece which rises rapidly to a climax and then glides down to a perfect ending.

Though it is impossible to have a "Definitive Edition" of Mother Goose, parents will find that most of the rhymes they remember from their childhood are included in this new collection. There are even some rhymes which may not have been in the book they read. The rhymes of Mother Goose are a necessary part of any child's early education. 

From the dust jacket