Cautionary Tales and Other Verses

This collection gathers Hilaire Belloc's comic moral verses, beginning with the Cautionary Tales first published in 1907 and adding later companion books of the same kind. Short narrative poems present children who disobey and meet abrupt ends: Jim who runs away, Matilda who lies, Henry King who chews string, and others punished for pride, greed, or curiosity. Further sequences apply the same mock-solemn voice to animals, letters of the alphabet, and titled families. The book is light verse rather than a continuous story: a run of illustrated cautionary rhymes that invert nursery instruction by carrying it to violent extremes. Each poem states a fault, shows the deed, and closes on a brisk, implausible penalty.

Bound in cloth with a design in dark green, red, yellow, white and black by Simmonds. Yellow endleaves. Orange slipcase.