SIGERSON, Dora. Kittie’s Toys A Child’s Song by Dora Sigerson 1917.

Dublin: Gaelic Press, [1917]. Single octavo-sheet folded as issued. Decorative typographic border, with the poem printed in two columns. Mild age-toning and light spotting, with soft creasing from original folds. A very good example of a fragile ephemeral survival.
A rare poetic verses by Dora Sigerson (later Sigerson Shorter), written “for Kathleen,” and issued during the First World War. Though framed as a children’s song, the poem is an unmistakable allegory of imperial aggression, military coercion, and the rhetoric of “liberty,” with its repeated refrain of toys, flags, ships, and soldiers forcefully taken by “Johnny.” Kittie’s Toys stands among Sigerson’s most pointed political verses, notable for its simplicity of language masking a sharply anti-imperialist critique. Ephemeral wartime printings of Sigerson’s work are scarce, and examples survive primarily in institutional collections.
Jack B. Yeats made illustrations for this work, which unfortunately were never published.

[CAT 163]