Anonymous
American · United States
For younger readers
Nobody knows who made up The Gingerbread Man. The first time anyone printed it was in an American children's magazine in 1875, and whoever sent it in did not put their name on it. They did say where they got it: a girl from Maine told it to their children, and she had heard it from an old lady when she was little. So the story came down through people telling it out loud, probably for hundreds of years, and it belongs to everybody now.
Life
Nobody knows who wrote The Gingerbread Man. It appeared in print for the first time in the May 1875 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine in New York, in the section for very little folks, with no author credited anywhere. The volume index lists only the title and a page number. The magazine's own Letter-Box refers to the author of the Gingerbread Boy without naming them. What survives instead is a note about where the story came from: a girl from Maine told it to the reteller's children, it interested them enough that the reteller thought it worth preserving, and when asked where she had found it the girl said an old lady had told it to her in her childhood. That is the whole provenance. It places the story in oral circulation in New England well before 1875 and takes it no further back than that. The tale itself is far older than any American telling; folklorists classify it as ATU 2025, and versions of the runaway food turn up across Germany, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Russia.
Moments from their life
1875
Printed for the first time
The Gingerbread Boy appeared in the May 1875 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine in New York, on pages 448 and 449, in the section headed For Very Little Folks. It was set with hyphens between the syllables for beginner readers.
1875
No name on it
There is no byline before or after the text. The volume index lists only the title and the page number. The magazine's Letter-Box mentions the author of the Gingerbread Boy without ever naming them.
1875
A girl from Maine
The person who submitted it explained: a girl from Maine told it to their children, it interested them enough to write down, and when asked where she got it she said an old lady had told it to her in her childhood.
1890
The English cousin
Joseph Jacobs published Johnny-Cake in English Fairy Tales, taken from a version in the American Journal of Folk-Lore. His johnnycake rolls rather than runs, and the fox pretends to be deaf so the boast must be repeated closer and closer.
1905
The King of Bon Bon Land
A Broadway musical opened at the Liberty Theatre on Christmas Day 1905, with music by Alfred Baldwin Sloane and words by Frederic Ranken. In it the gingerbread man is really a king transformed by a sorcerer called Machevelius Fudge. The producers gave away 25,000 dough statuettes to promote it.
1961
Given a number
Folklorists classify the runaway food story as tale type ATU 2025, The Runaway Pancake. It has been traced across Germany, the British Isles, the Slavic world, northern Europe and the United States.
Things you might not know
- The tale was printed anonymously in St. Nicholas Magazine in May 1875.
- The only clue to its origin is a note about a girl from Maine who had heard it from an old lady.
- In the 1875 text it is called The Gingerbread Boy, not The Gingerbread Man.
- It was printed with hyphens between the syllables, for children just learning to read.
- Folklorists call this tale type ATU 2025, The Runaway Pancake.
- The editor of St. Nicholas Magazine at the time was Mary Mapes Dodge.
In their words
- “A girl from Maine told it to my children. It interested them so much that I thought it worth preserving.”
- “Now you shall hear a story that somebody's great, great-grandmother told a little girl.”
Stories
Personalised stories are coming soon
A brand new story with your child as the main character, illustrated on every page. We are not taking orders yet. Join the waitlist and we will email you when it opens.