The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe is, by most accounts, an old British woman who lives in a shoe along with a number of offspring substantially in excess of what she can effectively discipline and who therefore uses corporal punishment with them. She and her children are usually depicted as literally living in an oversized shoe, although there are other portrayals, and some texts indicate they eventually move on to better accommodations. The handful of sources that document her name are in great disagreement: A pantomime from 1863 or 1864 says her name is Dame Tucker, one 1874 text refers to her as Sister Shoester, another 1874 text calls her Granny Kenneth, an 1882 text calls her Mother Madge, an 1890 text calls her Mistress Crispin, a 1906 text calls her Mrs. Brown and a 1913 text names her Mrs. Oldwomaninshoe. In the worlds of both Three Old Friends and Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes, she and her family are mice, and in the world of Mother Wild Goose, she is a white rabbit who pins her children to trees by their ears.
The available texts are quite inconsistent in their explanations of how it is that the woman and her offspring came to live in a shoe, but they can be placed in three broad groupings: those that indicate that the shoe is indeed unusually large (History of the Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and others), those that indicate that the shoe is of normal size but that the woman and her family are unusually small (Three Old Friends and others), and those that indicate that “living in a shoe” is merely a turn of phrase and that they do not actually live inside a shoe (Mother Goose in Prose and others).
According to a 1913 text, other nursery‐rhyme figures are among her children, apparently adopted, namely Daffy Down Dilly, Peep Peep, Taffy and Humpty Dumpty (Marriage of Jack and Jill). A 1922 text makes a similar claim, albeit with different children : Margery Daw, Miss Muffet, Boy Blue, Jack Horner, Tom Tucker, Piper’s Tom and Baby Bunting, as well as Cinderella, Topsy and Orphan Annie (“Sing a Song of Sleepy Head”).
(Mrs. Brown, offspring Tommy, Betty, Maggie, Katy, Mary and Alice Brown, poor mother living in city near Mary L., Christmas charity box in the shape of a shoe)
“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe” (nursery rhyme), 1783 or 1784. (ODNR 546, p. 434)
“There was an old woman, ſhe liv’d in a ſhoe,” 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, collected by Joſeph Ritſon, 1783 or 1784. (1810 ed., HathiTrust)
Infant Inſtitutes, Part the Firſt, or, A Nurſerical Eſſay on the Poetry, Lyric and Allegorical of the Earlier Ages, by Baptiſt Noel Turner, 1797.
“There was an old woman she lived in a shoe,” Songs for the Nursery Collected from the Works of the Most Renowned Poets, [illustration by William Marshall Craig,] 1805. (1808, Internet Archive)
Vocal Harmony, or No Song, No Supper, ca. 1806.
“An Old Woman Lived in a Shoe,” Nurse Lovechild’s Ditties for the Nursery, ca. 1830. (TPL)
“There was an old woman, she lived in a shoe,” Mother Goose’s Melodies: The Only Pure Edition; Containing All That Have Ever Come to Light of Her Memorable Writings, Together with Those Which Have Been Discovered Among the Mss. of Herculaneum, Likewise Every One Recently Found in the Same Stone Box Which Hold the Golden Plates of the Book of Mormon; The Whole Compared, Revised, and Sanctioned, by One of the Annotators of the Goose Family …, [1833]. (Internet Archive)
“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,” The Nursery Rhymes of England, Collected Principally from Oral Tradition, collected by James Orchard Halliwell, 1842. (HathiTrust) (2nd ed., HathiTrust)
Three Old Friends, uncredited musical setting, illustrated by Edmund Caldwell (d. 1930), [1896]. (Internet Archive)
“There was an old woman,” Rimes and Stories, by Lura Mary Eyestone, illustrated by Emma Bell, 1910. (HathiTrust)
Essay on the Archæology of Our Popular Phrases, Terms and Nursery Rhymes, supplement to the 2nd ed., by John Bellenden Ker Gawler, 1840. (HathiTrust)
The History of the Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Aunt Mavor’s Little Library, [ca. 1840]. (CBO)
Reprinted in Popular Nursery Tales and Rhymes, 1868. (ufl)
Abridged in Big Book of Fairy Tales, 1892. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
“There was a wee bit wifie” or “There was an auld wife that lived in a shoe,” Scottish variant, 1842 or earlier.
The Nursery Rhymes of England, Collected Principally from Oral Tradition, collected by James Orchard Halliwell, 1842. (HathiTrust) (2nd ed., HathiTrust)
“An Interesting Variant,” collected by Annie Shirer (d. 1915), Miscellanea of the Rymour Club Edinburgh, vol. 2, 1912–19. (HathiTrust)
“The Big Shoe,” Mother Goose for Grown Folks: A Christmas Reading, by Adeline Dutton Train Whitney, 1859. (Internet Archive)
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?]. Dame Tucker. (Internet Archive)
Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, illustrated by Joseph Martin Kronheim, Routledge’s Threepenny Toy‐Books no. 9, [1871 or earlier].
“The Merry Christmas of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” by George M. Baker, Our Boys and Girls Monthly, vol. 14, no. 245, Dec. 1873. (HathiTrust) (Google Books)
The Exhibition Drama: Comprising Drama, Comedy, and Farce, Together with Dramatic and Musical Entertainments, for Private Theatricals, Home Representations, Holiday and School Exhibitions, 1875. (Internet Archive)
The Merry Christmas of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, 1902. (HathiTrust) (Google Books)
Moonfolk: A True Account of the Home of the Fairy Tales, by Jane G. Austin, illustrated by W. J. Linton, 1874. Sister Shoester. (HathiTrust) (1882, Internet Archive)
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe; or, There’s No Place like Home, by Amanda M. Douglas, with an uncredited frontispiece, 1874. Granny Kenneth. (Internet Archive)
Frontispiece by John Goss, 1874. (HathiTrust)
Edition with yet another frontispiece, 1875. (HathiTrust)
“Directions for a Mother Goose Party,” by Geo. B. Bartlett, 1877. Published 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) (Internet Archive)
“The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: A Christmas Play for Little Folk,” by Olive Wilson, Harper’s Young People, vol. 4, no. 164, 19 Dec. 1882. Mother Madge. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust) (HathiTrust)
“The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” Fairy’s Album with Rhymes of Fairyland, 1884. (Earlier books by O. M. Dunham are reliably in the public domain.) (Internet Archive)
Wanted—a King, by Maggie Browne (d. 1937), illustration by Harry Furniss (d. 1925), 1890. Mistress Crispin. (Internet Archive)
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: A Christmas Cantata for Primary Sunday School Classes, by Fronia Smith Savage and Fred A. Fillmore, front cover illustration, 1891. (ad)
“The Mother Goose Carnival,” by Mrs. John D. Thayer, The Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 9, no. 2, Jan. 1892. (HathiTrust)
Fairy Tales, booklet advertising Fairy soap, with two illustrations, 1897.
“The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” Mother Goose in Prose, by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, 1897. (Internet Archive)
“Once upon a time, my dears,” The Rhymes of Father Goosie Gander: A Companion and Sequel to Mother Goose Melodies, by Blanche Carpenter Huleatt and Belle Carpenter Sabin, illustrated by Blanche Carpenter Huleatt, 1898. (Internet Archive) (UF)
“There was an old rabbit,” 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)
“An old woman once lived in a shoe,” Yankee Mother Goose, by Benj. F. Cobb, illustrated by Ella S. Brison, 1902. (Internet Archive)
Boy Blue and His Friends, by Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell, illustrated by Maud Tousey, 1906. Mrs. Brown. (Internet Archive)
“The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” by Anna Marion Smith, illustrated by Reginald B. Birch, St. Nicholas, vol. 34, no. 2, Dec. 1906. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust) (Google Books)
Reprinted as “Old Woman in a Shoe,” Mother Goose and What Happened Next, 1909. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust) (Google Books)
Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes, by Lina Eckenstein (d. 1931), 1906. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust) (HathiTrust)
Mrs. Goose: Her Book, by Maurice Switzer, 1906. (HathiTrust)
“Scenes from Mother Goose,” by Harriette Wilbur, A Dream of Mother Goose and Other Entertainments, 1908. (HathiTrust)
“The Gingerbread Boy,” The Progressive Road to Reading, book 1, by Georgine Burchill, William L. Ettinger and Edgar Dubs Shimer, 1909. (HathiTrust, US access only) (Internet Archive, sans illustrations)
“There was an old man / Who quaked in his shoe,” 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. Mrs. Oldwomaninshoe. (Internet Archive)
“The Story Book Ball” (song), by George Perry, music by Billie Montgomery, 1917. (Johns Hopkins U.)
“You know the old woman who lived in a shoe?,” Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes, by Beatrix Potter (d. 1943), (Oct.) 1917.
The Campus Gander, The Siren, vol. 7, no. 6, Mar. 1920. (HathiTrust)
The Metropolitan Mother Goose, by Elizabeth C. Watson, illustrated by Emma Clark, 1920. (Internet Archive)
“ Sing a Song of Sleepy Head : A Play for Grownups and Children, ” Sing a Song of Sleepy Head : Being Readable Rhymes for Curious Children, by James W. Foley, 1922. (HathiTrust)
“Mrs. Dumpty’s Dilemma,” by Sarah Addington, The Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 39, no. 9, Sept. 1922. (HathiTrust)
The Real Personages of Mother Goose, by Katherine Elwes Thomas, 1930. (HathiTrust)
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