A Child's Garden of Verses

by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith

This edition of Stevenson's classic poetry collection was published in 1905 by Charles Scribner's Sons in New York, with color illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith. The book carries a copyright dated 1905, and all rights to it are reserved—meaning no part of it may be copied or reprinted without the publisher's permission.

Dedication

Stevenson dedicated the book to Alison Cunningham, the nurse who cared for him when he was a sick child. The dedication poem thanks her for the sleepless nights she spent watching over him, for guiding him gently through difficult times, for reading him stories, and for comforting him through both sad and happy days. He calls her his "second mother" and says that now, grown and healthy, he offers her this small book in return. He closes by wishing that every reader might have as loving a caregiver, and that every child who hears these poems might hear them in as kind a voice as the one that once brightened his own childhood.

For the long nights you lay awake
And watched for my unworthy sake:
For your most comfortable hand
That led me through the uneven land:
For all the story-books you read:
For all the pains you comforted:

For all you pitied, all you bore,
In sad and happy days of yore [long ago]:—
My second Mother, my first Wife,
The angel of my infant life—
From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!

And grant it, Heaven, that all who read
May find as dear a nurse at need,
And every child who lists [listens to] my rhyme,
In the bright, fireside, nursery clime [setting],
May hear it in as kind a voice
As made my childish days rejoice!

—R. L. S.

The book's original title page, also designed by Jessie Willcox Smith, reads: A Child's Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson, with illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1905.

Contents

The collection is organized into several groups of poems:

Opening poems: Bed in Summer; A Thought; At the Sea-Side; Young Night-Thought; Whole Duty of Children; Rain; Pirate Story; Foreign Lands; Windy Nights; Travel; Singing; Looking Forward; A Good Play; Where Go the Boats?; Auntie's Skirts; The Land of Counterpane; The Land of Nod; My Shadow; System; A Good Boy; Escape at Bedtime; Marching Song; The Cow; Happy Thought; The Wind; Keepsake Mill; Good and Bad Children; Foreign Children; The Sun Travels; The Lamplighter; My Bed Is a Boat; The Moon; The Swing; Time to Rise; Looking-Glass River; Fairy Bread; From a Railway Carriage; Winter-Time; The Hayloft; Farewell to the Farm; North-West Passage (in three parts: Good-Night, Shadow March, and In Port).

The Child Alone: The Unseen Playmate; My Ship and I; My Kingdom; Picture-Books in Winter; My Treasures; Block City; The Land of Story-Books; Armies in the Fire; The Little Land.

Garden Days: Night and Day; Nest Eggs; The Flowers; Summer Sun; The Dumb Soldier; Autumn Fires; The Gardener; Historical Associations.

Envoys (closing poems addressed to loved ones): To Willie and Henrietta; To My Mother; To Auntie; To Minnie; To My Name-Child; To Any