The Queen of Hearts

The Queen of Hearts from a watercolour painting, Percy Gossop,1901. Museum no. PP.73a (click image for larger version)

'The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day;
The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away.
The King of Hearts called for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore
The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and vowed he'd steal no more.'

This rhyme first appeared in print as part of a 12 line verse in a feature called The Hive: A Collection of Scraps in The European Magazine  of 1782. Later the familiar rhyme was used to ridicule popular verse. In the 19th century the writer Lewis Carroll used the characters of the rhyme in his children’s novel Alice in Wonderland, which was published in 1865. The Queen of Hearts features in the novel as a walking, talking playing card who deals with anyone who gets in her way by declaring ‘off with his head!’.