Many stories have been told to explain how Mother Goose became associated with nursery rhymes and children’s stories, but most of them are untrue.
There was never a person named Mother Goose, and no one person wrote all the stories that are now part of Mother Goose collections.
In 1696, a French writer named Charles Perrault put together a collection of stories, some of which had been handed down for many centuries from generation to generation. He published them in a book called Histories or Stories of Time Past, and on the cover of that book was a sign that read: “Tales of My Mother Goose.”
This book was translated into English in 1729, and became known as Mother Goose’s Fairy Tales. Then in 1760, a book of nursery rhymes was published in England, taking the name Mother Goose’s Melody.
These old tales and rhymes came to America in 1785, in a book called Mother Goose.
