Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The original story is about a little shepherdess who loses her sheep. Her name may have come from a 16th-century children’s peek-a-boo game in England known as “Bo-Peep.” The game was even referenced in a scene in Shakespeare’s King Lear.
In 1805 the first verse was discovered in print. Additional verses were added in 1810, when it was published in a collection of nursery rhymes titled The Nursery Parnassus by Joseph Johnson.
Later, in 1870, James William Elliot wrote a melody for the “Little Bo-Peep” lyrics.
(James William Elliott (1833–1915), usually cited as J. W. Elliott, was an English collector of nursery rhymes. Together with George Dalziel and Edward Dalziel who did the engraving he published Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs Set to Music in the 1870s. I do not KNOW for certain if Vernon Elliot could have been Vernon Elliot's son. He is listed as the pianist on my roll box.)
The original story is about a little shepherdess who loses her sheep. Her name may have come from a 16th-century children’s peek-a-boo game in England known as “Bo-Peep.” The game was even referenced in a scene in Shakespeare’s King Lear.
In 1805 the first verse was discovered in print. Additional verses were added in 1810, when it was published in a collection of nursery rhymes titled The Nursery Parnassus by Joseph Johnson.
Later, in 1870, James William Elliot wrote a melody for the “Little Bo-Peep” lyrics.
(James William Elliott (1833–1915), usually cited as J. W. Elliott, was an English collector of nursery rhymes. Together with George Dalziel and Edward Dalziel who did the engraving he published Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs Set to Music in the 1870s. I do not KNOW for certain if Vernon Elliot could have been Vernon Elliot's son. He is listed as the pianist on my roll box.)
