"The Queen of Hearts" is an English poem and nursery rhyme based on the characters found on playing cards, by an anonymous author, originally published with three lesser-known stanzas, "The King of Spades", "The King of Clubs", and "The Diamond King", in the British publication The European Magazine , vol. 1, no. 4, in April 1782. [1] However, Iona and Peter Opie have argued that there is evidence to suggest that these other stanzas were later additions to an older poem. [2]
The song relates that the Queen of Hearts bakes some tarts. The Knave of Hearts then steals all of them. The King of Hearts (the husband of the Queen of Hearts) calls for the tarts and beats the Knave harshly. So the Knave returns them and pledges to not steal again.
The other stanzas published with it deal with nothing besides the domestic arrangements of the other three suits: "The King of Spades" flirts with the maids, so the Queen of Spades has them beaten and drives them out. She relents when the Knave appeals to her on their behalf. "The King of Clubs" and his wife constantly fight, but the Knave refuses to second him. The author opines that royalty who fight like that should be punished. "The Diamond King" and his wife would get along perfectly, except the Knave tries to seduce her; the author encourages the King to hang the Knave. [3]
"The Queen of Hearts" proved by far the most popular of the stanzas, and entered popular culture, while the others fell into obscurity. [1] Although it was originally published in a magazine for adults, [1] it eventually became best known as a nursery rhyme. By 1785, it had been set to music. [1]
There has been speculation about a model for the Queen of Hearts. In The Real Personage of Mother Goose, Katherine Elwes Thomas claims the King and Queen of Hearts are based on Elizabeth of Bohemia and the events that resulted in the outbreak of the Thirty Years War. W. Gurney Benham, in his book Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanations of its Many Secrets, notes that French playing cards from the mid-17th century have Judith from the Hebrew Bible as the Queen of Hearts. [4] However, according to Benham, a scholar who researched the history of playing cards: "The old nursery rhyme about the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts and was beaten for so doing by the King, seems to be founded on nothing more than the fact that 'hearts' rhymes with 'tarts'." [5]
The poem's story is retold in a much expanded form in an 1805 poem known as King and Queen of Hearts: with the Rogueries of the Knave who stole the Queen's Pies [4] by Charles Lamb, which gives each line of the original, followed by a poem commenting on the line. [6] In 1844 Halliwell included the poem in the 3rd Edition of his The Nursery Rhymes of England (though he dropped it from later editions) and Caldecott made it the subject of one of his 1881 "Picture Books", a series of illustrated nursery rhymes which he normally issued in pairs before Christmas from 1878 until his death in 1886. [4]
"The Queen of Hearts" is quoted in and forms the basis for the plot of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , Chapter XI: "Who Stole the Tarts?", [7] a chapter that lampoons the British legal system through means of the trial of the Knave of Hearts, [8] where the rhyme is presented as evidence. The poem became more popular after its inclusion in Carroll's work. [4]
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is an English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early-19th-century English poem written by Jane Taylor, "The Star". The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is now sung to the tune of the French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman", which was first published in 1761 and later arranged by several composers, including Mozart with Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman". The English lyrics have five stanzas, although only the first is widely known. The song is in the public domain.
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a novel published on 27 December 1871 by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. There she finds that, just like a reflection, everything is reversed, including logic.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at Oxford University. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.
Mother Goose is a character that originated in children's fiction, as the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. She also appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. The character also appears in a pantomime tracing its roots to 1806.
"Little Bo-Peep" or "Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6487.
The Queen of Hearts is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She is a childish, foul-tempered monarch whom Carroll himself describes as "a blind fury", and who is quick to give death sentences at even the slightest of offenses. One of her most famous lines is the oft-repeated "Off with his/her head!" / "Off with their heads!"
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in an English nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19800. The names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people whose appearances and actions are identical.
The queen is a playing card with a picture of a queen on it. In many European languages, the king and queen begin with the same letter so the latter is often called dame (lady) or variations thereof. In French playing cards, the usual rank of a queen is between the king and the jack. In tarot decks, it outranks the knight which in turn outranks the jack. In the Spanish deck and some Italian decks, the Queen does not exist and the Knight appears in them instead, with the same role and value.
A Jack or Knave, in some games referred to as a Bower, in Tarot card games as a Valet, is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic or courtier dress, generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack is between the ten and the queen.
Bill the Lizard is a fictional character appearing in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The queen of hearts is a playing card in the standard 52-card deck.
The Lion and the Unicorn are symbols of the United Kingdom. They are, properly speaking, heraldic supporters appearing in the full royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The lion stands for England and the unicorn for Scotland. The combination therefore dates back to the 1603 accession of James I of England who was already James VI of Scotland. By extension, they are also used in the arms of Newfoundland since 1637, the arms of Hanover between 1837–1866, and the arms of Canada since 1921.
The King of Hearts is a character from the 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. He is the husband of the Queen of Hearts.
The Knave of Hearts is a character from the 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
The Red Queen is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Lewis Carroll's fantasy 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass. She is often confused with the Queen of Hearts from the previous book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), although the two are very different.
Alice in Wonderland is a 1949 French film based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Directed by Dallas Bower, the film stars Carol Marsh as Alice, Stephen Murray as Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Bussières as The Tailor. Most of the Wonderland characters are portrayed by stop-motion animated puppets created by Lou Bunin.
Alice in Verse: The Lost Rhymes of Wonderland (2010) is a reimagining of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland written by British-American author J.T. Holden. It tells the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 19 rhyming poems, each written in the same style as Lewis Carroll's original verse. The book includes 36 illustrations by American artist Andrew Johnson.
Wonderland is the setting for Lewis Carroll's 1865 children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a ballet in three acts by Christopher Wheeldon with a scenario by Nicholas Wright, based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It was commissioned by The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, and the National Ballet of Canada, and had its world premiere on Monday, 28 February 2011. The music by Joby Talbot is the first full-length score for the Royal Ballet in 20 years. It is also the first full-length narrative ballet commissioned by The Royal Ballet since 1995.
The full text of The Queen of Hearts, etc. at Wikisource
Media related to The Queen of Hearts (poem) at Wikimedia Commons