A song with the title: "Molly Put the Kettle On or Jenny's Baubie" was published by Joseph Dale in London in 1803.[2] It was also printed, with "Polly" instead of "Molly" in Dublin about 1790–1810 and in New York around 1803–07.[3] The nursery rhyme is mentioned in Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge (1841), which is the first record of the lyrics in their modern form.[1]
Inmiddle-class families in the mid-eighteenth century "Sukey" was equivalent to "Susan" and Polly was a pet-form of Mary.[1]
The tune associated with this rhyme "Jenny's Baubie" is known to have existed since the 1770s.[1] The melody is vaguely similar to "O du lieber Augustin", which was published in Mainz in 1788–89.[3]
^ abcdI. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd ed., 1997), pp. 353–54.
^D. M. Kassler, W. Hawes, D. W. Krummel and A. Tyson, eds, Music entries at Stationers' Hall, 1710–1818: from lists prepared for William Hawes (Aldershot: Ashgate 2004), p. 514.
^ abJames J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk (1966, 5th ed., Dover, 2000), pp. 399–400.
