Little Jack Horner in the Tudor period. The song’s most common lyrics are: <poem style="margin-left:24px> Little Jack Horner Sat in the corner, Eating his Christmas pie; He put in his thumb, And pulled out a plum, And said, "What a good boy am I!"</poem> It was first documented in full in the nursery rhyme collection "Mother Goose's melody, or, Sonnets for the cradle", which may date from 1765, although the earliest surviving English edition is from 1791. The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his "National Nursery Rhymes and
Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes book would be raided again in 1922 to compile a collection of nursery rhymes called "Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes" as a companion to "Appley Dapply". The book opens with a three-stanza rhyme about Appley Dapply, a mouse who raids cupboards for treats, and is accompanied with three illustrations, one which depicts a little mouse running away from a cupboard with a tray of pies: The following rhyme tells of Peter Rabbit's sister, Cotton-tail, and her implied courtship by a little black rabbit who leaves a gift of carrots at her door. In "The Tale of Mr. Tod", Cotton-tail is married