Originally the lyrics were: :Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, :Kissed the girls and made them cry, :When the girls came out to play, :Georgie Porgie ran away. These appeared in
The Kentish Coronal (1841), where the rhyme was described as an "old ballad" with the name spelled "Georgy Peorgy". That version persisted through most of the 19th century and was later illustrated by
Kate Greenaway in 1881. It was also quoted by
Rudyard Kipling in the story named after it, published in 1891.
James Halliwell-Phillipps did not record the words in his first collection of
The Nursery Rhymes of England, but in the fifth edition of 1853 he included a variant: :Rowley Powley, pumpkin pie, :Kissed the girls and made them cry; :When the girls begin to cry, :Rowley Powley runs away. And a
Cheshire dialect version was quoted in 1887 with the variant "picklety pie" in place of Halliwell's "pumpkin pie". By 1884 a version had appeared in which the third line read "When the boys came out to play", and it was this reading which
Iona and Peter Opie chose to perpetuate in their day in
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951). They also mentioned there various unsubstantiated conjectures that link the character Georgie Porgie to British historical figures, including
King George I and
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, claims that have been copied in other works of reference to this day. Among children the verse has been used as a rhyming taunt for boys called George, or else of fat boys. It is also used to harass a boy who is considered not sufficiently manly, either because he is thought to fancy a girl, or (with a switch of sexes in line two) who is accused of being homosexually inclined. It can also be used to tease a girl who fancies a boy, where, with other appropriate changes, she is addressed as "Rosie Posie". ==Musical versions==