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    A Child's Garden of Verses
    A Child's Garden of Verses
    A Child's Garden of Verses
    Ebook180 pages39 minutes

    A Child's Garden of Verses

    By Robert Louis Stevenson

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    First published in 1885 under the title “Penny Whistles”, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, is a collection of sixty-five poems for children about darkness and solitude. Amongst the collection includes such classics as “Foreign Children”, “The Lamplighter”, “The Land of Counterpane”, “Bed in Summer”, “My Shadow”, and “The Swing”. Inspired by many of his personal experiences as a child, Stevenson in this collection evokes the loneliness of being young, which he personally felt growing up due to his many illnesses, the spirit of adventure that filled his imagination as a youth, and his recollections of friends, family, and nature during the times he spent playing in the gardens at Colinton Manse. A beautiful collection of poetry, “A Child’s Garden of Verses” is sure to evoke memories of youth in all its readers and delight the child in all of us. This edition includes the illustrations of Jessie Willcox Smith which first appeared in the 1905 edition and a biographical afterword.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateSep 21, 2020
    ISBN9781420977714
    Author

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scottish novelist, travel writer, poet, and children’s author. Plagued by poor health his entire life, he was nevertheless an amazingly prolific writer, and created some of the most influential and entertaining fiction of the nineteenth century, including Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

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      Book preview

      A Child's Garden of Verses - Robert Louis Stevenson

      cover.jpg

      A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES

      By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

      Illustrated by JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH

      A Child’s Garden of Verses

      By Robert Louis Stevenson

      By Jessie Willcox Smith

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7604-5

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7771-4

      This edition copyright © 2021. Digireads.com Publishing.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      Cover Image: a detail of an illustration from A Child’s Garden of Verses by Jessie Willcox Smith. Scribner, New York, 1905.

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      To Alison Cunningham

      I. Bed in Summer

      II. A Thought

      III. At the Sea-Side

      IV. Young Night-Thought

      V. Whole Duty of Children

      VI. Rain

      VII. Pirate Story

      VIII. Foreign Lands

      IX. Windy Nights

      X. Travel

      XI. Singing

      XII. Looking Forward

      XIII. A Good Play

      XIV. Where Go the Boats?

      XV. Auntie’s Skirts

      XVI. The Land of Counterpane

      XVII. The Land of Nod

      XVIII. My Shadow

      XIX. System

      XX. A Good Boy

      XXI. Escape at Bedtime

      XXII. Marching Song

      XXIII. The Cow

      XXIV. Happy Thought

      XXV. The Wind

      XXVI. Keepsake Mill

      XXVII. Good and Bad Children

      XXVIII. Foreign Children

      XXIX. The Sun Travels

      XXX. The Lamplighter

      XXXI. My Bed is a Boat

      XXXII. The Moon

      XXXIII. The Swing

      XXXIV. Time to Rise

      XXXV. Looking-Glass River

      XXXVI. Fairy Bread

      XXXVII. From a Railway Carriage

      XXXVIII. Winter-Time

      XXXIX. The Hayloft

      XL. Farewell to the Farm

      XLI. North-West Passage.

      THE CHILD ALONE

      I. The Unseen Playmate

      II. My Ship and I

      III. My Kingdom

      IV. Picture-Books in Winter

      V. My Treasures

      VI. Block City

      VII. The Land of Story-Books

      VIII. Armies in the Fire

      IX. The Little Land

      GARDEN DAYS

      I. Night and Day

      II. Nest Eggs

      III. The Flowers

      IV. Summer Sun

      V. The Dumb Soldier

      VI. Autumn Fires

      VII. The Gardener

      VIII. Historical Associations

      ENVOYS

      I. To Willie and Henrietta

      II. To My Mother

      III. To Auntie

      IV. To Minnie

      V. To My Name-Child

      VI. To Any Reader

      BIOGRAPHICAL AFTERWORD

      NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS

      The illustrations in this edition by Jessie Willcox Smith originally appeared in a 1905 edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses published by Scribner, New York. The illustrations which originally appeared in color are reproduced in grayscale for the print edition and color for the electronic edition.

      img1.jpgimg2.png

      To Alison Cunningham

      FROM HER BOY

      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:—

      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 my rhyme,

      In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,

      May hear it in as kind a voice

      As made my childish days rejoice!

      R. L. S.

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