page_title: The Queen of Hearts (poem)
section_title: Inspiration for characters
hierarchical_section_title: The Queen of Hearts (poem) / Synopsis and structure / Inspiration for characters
caption_attribution_description: The Knave of Hearts, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose.
context_page_description: "The Queen of Hearts" is an English poem and nursery rhyme based on the characters found on playing cards, by an anonymous author, originally published with three lesser-known stanzas, "The King of Spades", "The King of Clubs", and "The Diamond King", in the British publication the European Magazine, vol. 1, no. 4, in April 1782. However, Iona and Peter Opie have argued that there is evidence to suggest that these other stanzas were later additions to an older poem.
context_section_description: There has been speculation about a model for the Queen of Hearts. In The Real Personage of Mother Goose, Katherine Elwes Thomas claims the Queen of Hearts was based on Elizabeth of Bohemia. Benham, in his book Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanations of its Many Secrets, notes that French playing cards from the mid-17th century have Judith from the Hebrew Bible as the Queen of Hearts. However, according to W. Gurney Benham, a scholar who researched the history of playing cards: "The old nursery rhyme about the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts and was beaten for so doing by the King, seems to be founded on nothing more than the fact that 'hearts' rhymes with 'tarts'."
caption: The King of Hearts. Illustration by W.W. Denslow.
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