Alice Daglish was the first wife of my father, Eric Fitch Daglish. Born Alice Archer in 1896, she married my father in 1918 toward the end of the First World War. They had three children - two sons (twins) and a daughter. Alice died in January 2000, aged 103.The Land of Nursery Rhyme was a book that Alice worked on with Ernest Rhys (1859-1946), a friend of the family who was a writer and founding editor of the Everyman’s Library series. This series, published by J.M. Dent in the UK and E.P. Dutton in the US, published classic book titles at an affordable price. The aim of the series was to publish 1,000 titles, in batches of ten titles at a time. The target was eventually reached in 1956, ten years after Rhys died.
The Land of Nursery Rhyme was first published in 1932, containing drawings by Charles Folkard (1879-1963), an illustrator of children's books. These included some very rich, colour illustrations of particular rhymes - such as the one shown for "Ride A Cock Horse To Banbury Cross". Later editions and re-prints of the book did not contain all of these full colour illustrations.
In a sign of the times that it was written, in the introduction the authors note:
“Here are the favourite old Nursery Rhymes along with some others which are more or less new … The very latest of all is one about a Flying-man.”
In a sign of the times that it was written, in the introduction the authors note:
“Here are the favourite old Nursery Rhymes along with some others which are more or less new … The very latest of all is one about a Flying-man.”
Flying-man, Flying-man,Up in the sky,
Where are you going to,
Flying so high?
Over the mountains,
And over the sea -!
Flying-man, Flying-man,
Can't you take me?
A later book "A Christmas Holiday Book" was published in 1934, this time with illustrations by Mary Shillabeer.
