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John Gilpin's Wild Ride

A comic poem retold from William Cowper

This story is retold from 'The Diverting History of John Gilpin,' a comic poem by William Cowper, first published in 1782. The poem tells of a London shopkeeper whose ride to a party goes hilariously wrong when his borrowed horse runs away with him. Cowper wrote the poem after hearing the story from a friend, and it became one of the best-loved humorous poems in English. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. The story is worth reading because it shows that even when things go wrong, we can laugh at ourselves—and that sometimes the funniest adventures are the ones we never planned.

Band

Purple · Pre-readers and first readersTypical starting range: ages 4–5

Length

short · about 338 words in 4 sections · 4 pictures

Source

Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, John Gilbert, Walter Crane, John Tenniel, Harrison Weir and Johann Baptist Zwecker

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (6 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Colouring page
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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