THE SONG OF SIXPENCE
PICTURE BOOK

CONTAINING
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE
PRINCESS BELLE ETOILE
ALPHABET OF OLD FRIENDS

LONDON & NEW YORK: JOHN LANE

THE SONG OF SIXPENCE
PICTURE BOOK

CONTAINING SING A
SONG OF SIXPENCE; PRINCESS
BELLE ETOILE; AN ALPHABET OF
OLD FRIENDS: WITH THE ORIGINAL
COLOURED DESIGNS BY
WALTER CRANE
INCLUDING A PREFACE AND
OTHER EMBELLISHMENTS

LONDON & NEW YORK JOHN LANE
THE BODLEY HEAD

PREFACE

Whether the Poet undertook to write and SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE for that popular price is not stated in his simple rhyme, but, at all events, we learn that he started with "a pocket full," and proceeded to draw on his imagination for all it was worth. What that famous blackbird-pie really cost—except in black-birds—is not disclosed, though the King seemed to show some anxiety about the state of his treasury, as he was discovered "in his counting house" imediately after the feast. But while the Queen, regardless of expense, regales herself on "bread and honey" in "the parlour", and her Maid-of-honour, or perhaps of-all-work, is engaged at the clothes-line, nothing is said about a princess.

No doubt there was a princess, and that Princess might have been PRINCESS BELLE-ETOILE? Anyway here she is in the same boat—I mean book—and certainly her adventures are romantic enough to prevent any surprise at the company in which Her Highness now finds herself.

Even princesses cannot do without Alphabets, and so in her train comes AN ALPHABET in which will be discovered many OLD and tried FRIENDS of the Nursery.

Thus we launch another volume of our series, like a fairy ship with a rather mixed cargo, in the hope that—to change the metaphor—like the blackbird-pie, it may prove, when opened, to be "a pretty dish to set before—" their Babyships.

Walter Crane

Kensington. Sept: 1909

SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,

Four and twenty black-birds,
Baked in a pie

When the pie was open'd
The birds began to sing

Was'nt that a dainty dish
To set before the King?

The King was in his counting-house,
Counting out his money.

The Queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;