This Peter Piper is almost as much of our common heritage as The Star Spangled Banner or The Boy Stood on the burning Deck. Nay, I’m sure that more people can finish its lines, once you set them going, than can give you the second stanza as Francis Scott Key or Felecia Dorothea Hermans sent them forth.

The facts about Peter are quickly stated. It was in 1836 that Willard Johnson published his text at 141 South Street in Philadelphia, and if you turn to Dr. Rosenbach’s catalogue of his early American children’s books you will find between pages 286 and 287 a charming reproduction of the cover, black print on a yellow or orange sheet that surely must have captured the eye and fancy of any child that saw it, also the P p page showing Peter himself.