This vintage poster for the Pantomime “Mother Goose” depicts this Fairy tale with archetypal country woman.
No author has been found for this tale; Charles Perrault has been credited with his tale “Contes de ma mère l'Oye” in 1695, or Edmund Spenser’s satire “Mother Hubberd’s tale” in 1590. Or even Katherine the wife of the King Robert II of France. In Boston, USA, it is said that the original Mother Goose was a Bostonian wife of an Isaac Goose, either named Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665–1758) or Mary Goose (d. 1690, age 42). She is reputed to have sung songs and ditties to her numerous grand-children and her son-in-law, Thomas Fleet, published them.
In the 21st Century “Mother Goose” is very much associated with the very British tradition of Pantomime.
