A Bedtime Party

Summary

Readers may recall a piece of bedtime lore about Lily White’s Party. Growing up on Long Island in the 1980s, I learned about this charming affair when my mother would tuck me in at bedtime. My grandmother transmitted the lore to my mother in 1950s Brooklyn. Its questionable origins notwithstanding, of interest to me are the shifting form, function, content, and context of the text’s retelling.