NOTE: If you want to be part of the Invitational and have a chance to win a prize, do NOT submit your Little Willies to RuthlessRhymes (at least until after June 26th). If your Little Willie is published here prior to June 26th, you won’t be eligible for the Invitational.

The Empress of the Washington Post’s Style Invitational has invited her readership to write Little Willies.

Awesome.

There are several prizes to be awarded — and don’t think that the first place prize is the only desirable one.

The second place prize is my absolute favorite prize of all prizes ever.

Pop over to the Washington Post, read the rules, follow the rules, write a perfectly awful (only the “good kind” of awful) bit of verse and submit it to the Washington Post site.

Between now and June 26th, if you submit a Little Willie here, I’m going to surmise you don’t care about fame and fortune (as I offer neither) and publish it — disqualifying you from the Invitational.

Go forth and be gruesome.

When I found a listing in a 1911 Catalogue of Copyright Entries for a book called “Little Willies,” I knew I had to have it.

A “booklet” devoted to Little Willies? And published in 1911? What wonders would such a book behold?

Not many, actually.

While I’m delighted to have finally acquired a copy, I didn’t find much new material. In fact, of the twenty-six “Little Willies” included, I had already seen earlier versions/publications of twenty of them.

I suspect that the remaining six were also previously published and I just haven’t found them (yet).

There’s no author (or editor) in this book. Not even the name of a “compiler.” It appears that the publisher just “re-purposed” some existing quatrains and changed all the starring characters to “Little Willie” in order to have some sense of “theme” for this little book.

But while I found the content disappointing, I can’t dismiss that in the world of Little Willies research, this is an important publication. To my knowledge, it is the first time that “Willie” was the star of every page.

As newspapers in the early 1900s commonly used “Little Willie” as a generic label for all little boys, I don’t believe this book is the sole reason this type of verse came to be known as “Little Willies.”

But I’m guessing it played a part.

I’ve added the published Little Willies to this site and, where appropriate, I’ve linked them up to the earlier version of the same verse.

Enjoy these not-so new bits of gruesome. 😉

01. Little Willie with a thirst for gore,
02. Willie heard his sister scream,
03. Willie saw some dynamite,
04. Into the cistern little Willie
05. Willie found a great big pitcher –
06. Willie and three other brats,
07. Willie got some Japalac,
08. Willie saw a buzz-saw buzz
09. Willie with a fearful curse,
10. Little Willie had a mirror,
11. Willie in the cauldron fell, –
12. Willie poisoned Auntie’s tea,
13. Willie, dressed in best of sashes,
14. Willie on the railroad track –
15. Willie pushed his Aunt Elizer
16. Willie scalped his baby brother,
17. Willie put a pin in sister’s eye,
18. Willie fell down the elevator,
19. Willie dropped a worm that wriggled
20. “If conscience speaks when I am wrong,”
21. Into the family drinking well
22. From the spring poor Willie had to
23. Little Willie for a frolic,
24. Willie stopped a cable car
25. Willie, while the ice was thin,
26. Baby’s in the ice-cream freezer,

Click to view full image.

Little Willie with a thirst for gore,
Nailed the baby to the door
Mother said, with humor quaint
“Willie, dear, don’t mar the paint.”

An earlier version of this verse was published in 1905 in Shield’s Magazine with “Sammy” as the title character.

Click to view full image.

Willie heard his sister scream,
Went and threw her in the stream,
Said her wails were too absurd.
“Children should be seen not heard.”

An obvious rewrite of one of Harry Graham’s ruthless rhymes, “The Stern Parent,” published in 1901.

Click to view full image.

Willie saw some dynamite,
Couldn’t understand it quite;
Curiosity never pays.
It rained Willie seven days.

Previously published in the The Advance (a Chicago weekly) on April 13, 1905 and attributed to the Princeton Tiger.