☞ Public‐domain character. Folkloric. First appearance in print, Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, 1744.
Mistress Mary or Mary Quite Contrary or Contrary Mary is, by most accounts, a contrary English girl who tends a garden with some unusual things in it. An 1886 text claims she is one of the two Babes in the Wood, an 1890 text asserts she is a witch who teaches high school on the moon, and a 1916 text says she hosts nightly parties on the moon. Two separate texts indicate she is a professional singer who performs onstage for live audiences, including Mother Wild Goose in which she is a canary.
In 1744 if not earlier, Mary is asked how her garden grows, to which she replies, “With Silver Bells, / And Cockle Shells.” These objects, apparently decorations, are clearly visible in her garden, the shells on the ground and the bells hanging from the branches of potted trees. Instead of Mary, however, a monkey is in the garden, evidently tending to one of the trees; the identity of this monkey is unknown, and it is never documented again (Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book). That same year, a group of four “Cuckolds” with horns on their heads are in the garden with Mary, and it is they, standing in a row, who sing the same response; who they are and why they are there is not disclosed, and they too are never mentioned again (Nancy Cock’s Song‐book). They would seem to be, however, the same cuckolds mentioned in 1651 in the title of a piece of instrumental music and its accompanying dance (English Dancing Maſter, “Cuckolds All a Row”). Both books refer to Mary as being “Quite contrary,” but neither indicates why.
A number of later sources indicate by illustration that the silver bells and cockle shells are actually growing in her garden, either because they are simply types of flowers with those names or because they are literal bells and shells that strangely grow as plants do.
In 1796, Mary ambiguously mentions that her garden additionally contains “pretty Maids all in a row” (Christmas Box). Different later sources contradictorily indicate by way of illustration that these maids are girls who visit the garden, or are a type of flower called a pretty maid, or are even bizarre plant/human hybrids with girls’ faces.
An 1834 text makes the strange assertion that the original nursery rhyme is not in Modern English but in “Low‐Saxon” and is thus not about Mistress Mary and her garden at all but about how villainous people invent stories to mislead others, with Mary’s name being reinterpreted as “Mistruwes maere,” translated as “Mistrustful fable” (Essay on the Archaiology of Popular English Phrases and Nursery Rhymes). As this is the only text to make this claim, and as there is abundant evidence of Mary and her adventures in other texts, it may best be dismissed as inaccurate.
In 1860, Mary is described as “a lady most arduous in her Botanical arrangements, and possessed of the choicest specimens of Flowers and Cockle Shells all of a row—with Lilies to match” (Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary!).
(brown eyes, various plants brought to her home by schoolmates while she recuperates from a foot injury, inspiring her outdoor garden)
Public‐domain bibliography
“Miſtreſs Mary” or “Mary, Mary, quite contrary” (nursery rhyme), 1740s or earlier.
“M.ͬˢ Mary,” Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, by Nurſe Lovechild (pseud., possibly of Mary Cooper), illustrated by George Bickham Jr., 1744. (page image, Princeton)
“Mrs Mary,” Nancy Cock’s Song‐book, for All Little Miſſes and Maſters: To Be Sung to Them by Their Nurſes, ’Till They Can Sing Them Themſelves, by Nurſe Lovechild (pseud.), 1744. (page image, Princeton)
Tommy Thumb’s Song Book for All Little Maſters and Miſſes, American ed., 1788. (umich)
The Tom Tit’s Song Book: Being a Collection of Old Songs, with Which Most Young Wits Have Been Delighted, ca. 1790.
“How Does My Ladys Garden Grow,” Christmas Box Containing the Following Bagatelles …, music by Mr. [James] Hook, [Dec. 1796]. Textual debut of the pretty maids. (Internet Archive)
Infant Inſtitutes, Part the Firſt, or, A Nurſerical Eſſay on the Poetry, Lyric and Allegorical of the Earlier Ages, by Baptiſt Noel Turner, 1797.
“Pretty Maids All in a Row: A Favorite Nursery Song,” music by Mr. [James] Hook, Musical Journal for the Piano Forte, vol. 1, (July) 1800. (HathiTrust)
Gammer Gurton’s Garland: or, The Nursery Parnassus; A Choice Collection of Pretty Songs and Verses, for the Amusement of All Little Good Children Who Can Neither Read nor Run, part 2, collected by Joseph Ritson, 1810. (HathiTrust)
“O Maria, Maria, valdé contraria, quomodo crescit hortulus tuus?” (first part only), trans. Charles Lamb, Apr. 1831. Selections from the Poems and Letters of Bernard Barton, ed. Lucy Barton, (Aug.) 1849. (HathiTrust)
First line quoted in “It’s Only a Drop!,” by Anna Maria Hall (Mrs. Samuel Carter Hall), Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, vol. 8, no. 376, 13 Apr. 1839. Earliest printing I could find of “Mary, Mary” rather than “Mistress Mary.” (HathiTrust)
Poetic Trifles, for Young Gentlemen & Ladies, [ca. 1840]. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
The Nursery Rhymes of England, Collected Principally from Oral Tradition, collected by James Orchard Halliwell, 1842 (Nov. 1841). (HathiTrust) (HathiTrust)
Mother Goose; or, National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs, music by James William Elliott, illustration by F. A. Fraser, 1872. (HathiTrust)
Rimes and Stories, illustrated by Emma Bell, 1910. (HathiTrust)
Songs from Mother Goose for Voice and Piano, music by Sidney Homer (op. 36), 1919. (Internet Archive)
An Essay on the Archaiology of Popular English Phrases and Nursery Rhymes, by John Bellenden Ker Gawler, 1834. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
Mary, Mary Quite Contrary; or, Harlequin Leap‐Year (pantomime), by L. C. Garrick, 1845.
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary! or, Harlequin Leap Year and the Fairy Sunlight! (pantomime), 1860. Apparently a different work than that above. (playbill)
Harlequin Little Tom Tucker; or, The Fine Lady of Banbury Cross, and the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: Grand Comic Pantomime, by the Brothers Grinn, [1864?]. (Internet Archive)
“Mistress Mary,” Nine Little Goslings, by Susan Coolidge, 1875. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
“Goose à la Mode: Modern Versification on Ancient Themes,” by Elisabeth Cavazza, Portland Daily Press, 23 Nov. 1875. Reprinted in Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature, 1886. (Internet Archive)
“Directions for a Mother Goose Party,” by Geo. B. Bartlett, 1877. Reprinted in New Games for Parlor and Lawn with a Few Old Friends in a New Dress, 1882. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
Reprinted in A Dream of Mother Goose and Other Entertainments, 1908. (HathiTrust)
“The Marriage of Santa Claus” (poem), The Reading Club and Handy Speaker: Being Serious, Humorous, Pathetic, Patriotic, and Dramatic Selections in Prose and Poetry, for Readings and Recitations, no. 9, ed. George Melville Baker, 1881. (HathiTrust)
“Mary and Her Garden” (poem), by Eva L. Ogden, St. Nicholas, vol. 10, no. 2, Dec. 1882. (Internet Archive)
“Silver Bells and Cockle Shells,” St. Nicholas, vol. 11, no. 4, Feb. 1884. (Internet Archive)
“Father Gander” (poem), by G. T. Lanigan, Harper’s Young People, vol. 8, no. 372, 14 Dec. 1886. (HathiTrust)
“Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary” (play), The Doll Dramas: The Dolls’ Drama and Other Plays, by Constance Milman (d. 1936), [1890]. (HathiTrust)
“Royal Playmates,” by Celia Logan, Harper’s Young People, vol. 13, no. 634, 22 Dec. 1891. (HathiTrust)
“The Mother Goose Carnival,” by Mrs. John D. Thayer, The Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 9, no. 2, Jan. 1892. (HathiTrust)
“Mistress Mary,” Mother Goose in Prose, by L. Frank Baum, 1897. (Internet Archive)
“Christmas Eve at Mother Hubbard’s (A Christmas Play for School or Parlor Entertainment),” by S. J. D., St. Nicholas, vol. 25, no. 3, Jan. 1898. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
The April Baby’s Book of Tunes with the Story of How They Came to Be Written, by Elizabeth von Arnim (d. 1941), illustrated by Kate Greenaway (d. 1901), 1900. (Internet Archive)
“The Judicious Judgment of Quite Contrary Mary,” Mother Goose for Grown‐Ups, by Guy Wetmore Carryl, 1900. (Internet Archive)
“Mary, Mary, my canary,” Mother Wild Goose and Her Wild Beast Show, by L. J. Bridgman, 1900. (Internet Archive)
Runaway Robinson, by Charles M. Snyder, illustrated by George R. Brill, 1901. (HathiTrust)
“‘What will you be?,’ said Mary Lee,” Yankee Mother Goose, by Benj. F. Cobb, illustrated by Ella S. Brison, 1902. (Internet Archive)
“A Message to Mother Goose,” by Ellen Manly, illustrated by George Varian, St. Nicholas, vol. 32, no. 2, Dec. 1904. (Internet Archive)
Boy Blue and His Friends, by Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell, illustrated by Maud Tousey, 1906. (Internet Archive)
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, by Lucy Clifford (d. 1929), 1906. Based on Les Pattes de mouche, by Victorien Sardou, 1860. (Internet Archive) (English, 1861, HathiTrust)
“A Dream of Mother Goose,” by J. C. Marchant and S. J. Mayhew, A Dream of Mother Goose and Other Entertainments, 1908. (HathiTrust)
“Mistress Mary,” Mother Goose and What Happened Next, by Anna Marion Smith, 1909. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, illustrated by J. Scott Williams, serialized in The American Magazine, Nov. 1910–Aug. 1911.
Pt. 1, vol. 71, no. 1, Nov. 1910. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 2, vol. 71, no. 2, Dec. 1910. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 3, vol. 71, no. 3, Jan. 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 4, vol. 71, no. 4, Feb. 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 5, vol. 71, no. 5, Mar. 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 6, vol. 71, no. 6, Apr. 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 7, vol. 72, no. 1, May 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 8, vol. 72, no. 2, June 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 9, vol. 72, no. 3, July 1911. (HathiTrust)
Pt. 10, vol. 72, no. 4, Aug. 1911. (HathiTrust)
Reprinted in book form, 1911. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
Illustrated by Tasha Tudor, 1962. (HathiTrust)
“The Christmas Conspiracy: A Christmas Play for Boys and Girls,” by Elizabeth Woodbridge, illustrated by Albertine R. Wheelan, St. Nicholas, vol. 39, no. 2, Dec. 1911. (Internet Archive)
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” The Bull Moose Mother Goose, by Sallie Macrum Cubbage, illustrated by (Chauncey F.) Cagney, 1912. (HathiTrust)
The Marriage of Jack and Jill: A Mother Goose Entertainment in Two Scenes, by Lilian Clisby Bridgham, 1913. (Internet Archive)
“Mistress Mary Gives a Garden Party,” Fairy Plays for Children, by Mabel R. Goodlander, uncredited photographs and cover art, 1915. Silver Bells, Cockle Shells and Pretty Maids are characters. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust) (Google)
The New Woman in Mother Goose Land: A Play for Children, by Edyth M. Wormwood, 1915. (Internet Archive)
The Modern Mother Goose: A Play in Three Acts, by Helen Hamilton, 1916. (Internet Archive)
“The Story Book Ball” (song), by George Perry, music by Billie Montgomery, 1917. (Johns Hopkins U.)
The Luck of Santa Claus: A Play for Young People, by B. C. Porter, 1918. (Internet Archive)
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” Mother Goose Comes to Portland, by Frederic W. Freeman, 1918. (Internet Archive)
“Mary! Mary! My pretty Mary,” The Metropolitan Mother Goose, by Elizabeth C. Watson, illustrated by Emma Clark, 1920. (Internet Archive)
The Doll Shop, by Helen Langhanke and Lois Cool Morstrom, (Nov.) 1920. (Internet Archive)
“There Was a Boy Who Lived on Pudding Lane: A True Account, If Only You Believe It, of the Life and Ways of Santa, Eldest Son of Mr. and Mrs. Claus,” by Sarah Addington, The Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 38, no. 12, Dec. 1921. (HathiTrust)
The Children Who Followed the Piper, by Padraic Colum (d. 1972), 1922. Appears to have been first published in the US. (Internet Archive)
The Strike Mother Goose Settled, by Evelyn Hoxie, 1922. (Internet Archive)
The Real Personages of Mother Goose, by Katherine Elwes Thomas, 1930. (HathiTrust)
http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/OO2342.html