[n.d. but ca. 1821-1823.]. 8vo, ff. [18] leaves, printed on one side only, with hand-coloured engraved frontispiece and a further 14 hand-coloured engraved illustrations in the text to make a total of 15 not 16 illustrations as stated by title (other editions make a similar error); all slightly crudely coloured; lightly browned and soiled throughout, with some occasional offsetting and bleed through from ink and colour; stitched, as issued, in original publisher's printed pictorial salmon wrappers, spine rubbed and worn with some loss, with 5cm split at tail but still holding firm, wrappers rubbed and dust-soiled, with some surface loss notably at lower rear corner; though a little dog-eared, overall an appealing copy. Uncommon and attractively illustrated late Regency rhyming riddle game for children, and seemingly an early edition with the A.K. Newman & Co. Dean & Munday imprint. A test of both memory and counting, the format is akin to that of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, and indeed its appear to date back to a similar time. Of the party who intend on playing one is appointed Treasurer who begins the game by passing an item, 'a penknife, pocket-book, or thimble' are among the suggestions to the person sat next to him stating 'Take this', the player responds 'What's this?', to which the Treasurer replies 'A gaping, wide-mouthed, waddling Frog'. The sequence is repeated, a line added to the nonsense verse with each turn. If a player misremembers a part of the increasingly complex rhyme he or she forfeits and must enact a penalty. Suggested penalties include 'Submit to be tickled by the company for five minutes', and 'Spell and pronounce this word twice within ten minutes, without a blunder - Al-di-bo-ron-ti-phos-ky-phor-ni-os-ti-kus'.
As with many similar chapbooks of the time, dating of the first edition seems unclear. As far as we have been able to establish, one of the earliest appearances of the rhyme in print was in ‘Mirth without Mischief. Containing the Twelve Days of Christmas, the play of the Gaping-wide-mouthed waddling frog, love and hatred, the art of talking with fingers, and Nimble-Ned’s alphabet and figures’ published by Davenport in 1780. It seems likely that, was in the case of the French inspired Twelve Days of Christmas, that the recited rhyme in various forms was already popular. In 1817 E. and J. Wallis issued ‘The Gaping Wide-mouthed Waddling Frog, adapted to a Game of Forfeits, coloured Plates’. The Osborne copy, and which appears to compare to the present copy, is dated to 1822 - from an manuscript inscription. A watermark date can be seen on [f.6] of 1821. A copy which sold at Christies in 2003, and which they suggested was 1822, had a variant title-page correcting the number of embellished engravings from sixteen to 15 as is in fact the case. Interestingly, that copy had ‘just 13 illustrations which are fully paginated’ (Christies, Dr Nigel Temple Collection of Children’s Books, 2003, lot 53).