Read Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes Online
Authors: Beatrix Potter
Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes
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.
ppley
Dapply
,
a little brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard
in somebody’s house.
somebody’s cupboard
there’s everything nice,
Cake, cheese, jam, biscuits,
— all charming for mice!
Dapply
has little sharp eyes,
And Appley Dapply
is
so
fond of pies!
ow
who is this knocking
at Cotton-tail’s door?
Tap tappit! Tap tappit!
She’s heard it before?
when she peeps out
there is nobody there,
But a present of carrots
put down on the stair.
! I hear it again!
Tap, tap, tappit! Tap tappit!
Why — I really believe
it’s a little black rabbit!
ld
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.
