Cautionary Tales for Children

Published in 1907, this slim book of comic verse pretends to instruct well-off English children in good behaviour, then visits gleefully gruesome punishments on them. Belloc offers eleven rhyming tales and a mock-solemn introduction: Jim, who lets go of his nurse’s hand and is eaten by a lion; Matilda, who tells lies and burns to death; Rebecca, who slams doors once too often; and Henry King, who dies from chewing bits of string. Each punishment is absurdly out of proportion to the crime, and that is precisely the joke. The poems parody the earnest moral verse of the Victorians while poking fun at upper-class manners and the whole tradition of the cautionary tale. Bouncing couplets and a straight-faced delivery keep it lively for adults and children alike.