The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America

Front Cover
Donald Hall
Oxford University Press, 1985 - 319 pages
In the tradition of Iona and Peter Opie's Oxford Book of Children's Verse comes this anthology by the award-winning poet and children's book author Donald Hall. Bringing together "poems written for children and also poems written for anybody which children have enjoyed," the book includes anonymous works, ballads, and recitation pieces, beginning with the Calvinist verses of the seventeenth century.
Hall has collected poems from Sunday School magazines, Christmas annuals for children, and children's periodicals such as St. Nicholas and Youth's Companion. Many marvelous writers, some no longer remembered, wrote almost every month for these nineteenth and twentieth century publications. In addition to the expected names of Longfellow and Whittier, we find Sarah Josepha Hale ("Mary Had a Little Lamb"), Mary Mapes Dodge (creator of Hans Brinker), and Palmer Cox (with his marvelous Brownies). Twentieth century authors abound: Ogden Nash, T.S. Eliot, John Updike, Theodore Roethke, to name just a few. The book concludes with the fabulous nonsense of present-day writers like Shel Silverstein and Nancy Willard.

About the Editor:

Donald Hall's many books include The Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes, Kicking the Leaves, and Ox-Cart Man, which won the Caldecott Medal for children's literature.
 

Contents

The Bay Psalm Book
3
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH 16311705
4
The New England Primer
7
PHILIP FRENEAU 17521832
13
CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE 17791863
15
ELIZA LEE FOLLEN 17871860
17
SARAH JOSEPHA HALE 17881879
19
HANNAH F GOULD 17891865
21
R K MUNKITTRICK 18531911
174
EDITH M THOMAS 18541925
177
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE 18561935
179
TUDOR JENKS 18571922
181
HAMLIN GARLAND 18601940
182
FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN 18601916
184
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE 18611937
185
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS 18621922
187

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY 17911865
24
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 17941878
27
CAROLINE GILMAN 17941888
31
ANNA MARIA WELLS 17951868
36
LYDIA MARIA CHILD 18021880
38
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 18031882
39
EMMA C EMBURY 18061863
40
N P WILLIS 18061867
41
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 18071882
42
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 18071892
54
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 18091894
64
EDGAR ALLAN POE 18091849
69
C P CRANCH 18131892
78
JOHN GODFREY SAXE 18161887
82
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 18191891
84
WALT WHITMAN 18191892
87
ALICE CARY 18201871
88
PHOEBE CARY 18241871
89
LUCY LARCOM 18241893
92
ROSE TERRY COOKE 18271892
98
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE 18271916
99
EMILY DICKINSON 18301886
107
HELEN HUNT JACKSON 18301885
111
MARY MAPES DODGE 18311905
113
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT 18321888
116
ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN 18321911
118
SUSAN COOLIDGE SARAH CHAUNCEY WOOLSEY 18351905
122
NATHANIEL GRAHAM SHEPHERD 18351869
126
HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD 18351921
128
CELIA THAXTER 18351894
129
CLARA DOTY BATES 18381895
136
PALMER COX 18401924
138
CHARLES E CARRYL 18411920
140
MARIAN DOUGLAS ANNIE DOUGLAS GREEN ROBINSON 18421913
143
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 18491909
145
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 18491916
146
ELIZABETH T CORBETT fl 1878
152
ANONYMOUS
155
SYDNEY DAYRE MRS COCHRAN fl 1881
158
EUGENE FIELD 18501895
160
LAURA E RICHARDS 18501943
163
JOHN BROWNJOHN CHARLES REMINGTON TALBOT 18511891
170
MARY E WELKINS FREEMAN 18521930
171
AMOS R WELLS 18621933
190
CAROLYN WELLS 18621942
191
OLIVER HERFORD 18631935
193
KATHARINE PYLE 18631938
197
ERNEST LAWRENCE THAYER 18631940
205
JOHN BENNETT 18651956
207
GELETT BURGESS 18661951
208
ARTHUR GUITERMAN 18711943
210
GUY WETMORE CARRYL 18731904
212
ROBERT FROST 18741963
215
GERTRUDE STEIN 18741946
216
VACHEL LINDSAY 18791931
218
SARA TEASDALE 18841933
221
ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS 18861941
223
T S ELIOT 18881965
225
EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY 18921950
230
MORRIS BISHOP 18931973
232
ELIZABETH COATSWORTH 1893
233
RACHEL FIELD 18941942
239
DAVID MCCORD 1897
241
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT 18981943 and ROSEMARY BENÉT 18981962
244
LANGSTON HUGHES 19021967
246
OGDEN NASH 19021971
248
COUNTEE CULLEN 19031946
253
DR SEUSS THEODORE GEISEL 1904
254
PHYLLIS MCGINLEY 19051978
255
THEODORE ROETHKE 19081963
256
MARGARET WISE BROWN 19101952
258
RANDALL JARRELL 19141965
259
JOHN CIARDI 1916
261
EVE MERRIAM 1916
265
WILLIAM JAY SMITH 1918
266
MAY SWENSON 1919
269
RICHARD WILBUR 1921
271
MARY ANN HOBERMAN 1930
274
SHEL SILVERSTEIN 1932
276
JOHN UPDIKE 1932
281
NANCY WILLARD 1936
282
JACK PRELUTSKY 1940
285
Notes
289
Index
311
Index of First Lines and Titles
313
Copyright

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About the author (1985)

Donald Andrew Hall Jr. was born in New Haven, Connecticut on September 20, 1928. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1951. His first collection of poetry, Exiles and Marriages, was published in 1955. His other collections included Without, The Museum of Clear Ideas, and The Painted Bed. He received several awards including the National Book Critics Circle Award for The One Day, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for The Happy Man, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Silver medal, and the Ruth Lilly Prize for poetry. He served as poetry editor of The Paris Review from 1953 to 1962 and was the United States poet laureate for 2006-2007. He was also a memoirist, an essayist, and the author of textbooks and children's books. His memoirs were entitled Life Work and Unpacking the Boxes. His children's book, Ox-Cart Man illustrated by Barbara Cooney, won the Caldecott Medal. He received a National Medal of Arts in 2011. He died on June 23, 2018 at the age of 89.

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