It is followed by the original text of a nursery rhyme with a broader story to establish its literary context.

When Baum later included this story in his Juvenile Speaker (1910) and The Snuggle Tales (1916–17), he changed the girl's name to Doris, to avoid confusing her with Dorothy Gale.

[2] Though handsomely produced, Mother Goose in Prose was priced relatively expensively for a children's book; it was "only moderately successful" commercially.

Baum took a different approach in a subsequent venture, composing original verses for his Father Goose: His Book in 1899.

New editions of Mother Goose in Prose appeared from Bounty Books in 1951 and after (ISBN 0-517-51904-6), Dover Publications in 2002, and Kessinger Publishing in 2004, among others.