AS I was going to St. Ives, 

   I met a man with seven wives; 

Every wife had seven sacks, 

Every sack had seven cats, 

Every cat had seven kits: 

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, 

How many were there going to St. Ives?

Old Nurse's Book: Of Rhymes, Jingles and Ditties. Ed. and Illus. by Charles H. Bennett. London, England: Griffith and Farran, 1857. [Facsimile edition reproduced from The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books. Toronto Public Library by Holp Shuppan, Publishers, Tokyo 1981.] p. 2.

As I was going to St. Ives, 

I met seven wives, 

Each wife had seven sacks, 

Each sack had seven cats! 

Each cat had seven kittens! 

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, 

How many were there going to St. Ives?

Baring-Gould, Sabine. A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes. Illus. by Members of the Birmingham Art School under the direction of A. J. Gaskin. London, England: Methuen, 1895, p. 143. No. LXXXVI in Nursery Jingles Section

AS I was going to St. Ives, 

   I met a man with seven wives; 

Every wife had seven sacks, 

Every sack had seven cats, 

Every cat had seven kits: 

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, 

How many were there going to St. Ives?

Lang, Andrew, Ed. The Nursery Rhyme Book. Illus. by L. Leslie Brooke. London, England: Frederick Warne and Co., 1897, p. 131.

As I was going to St. Ives, 

I met a man with seven wives, 

Each wife had seven sacks, 

Each sack had seven cats, 

Each cat had seven kits; 

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, 

How many were there going to St. Ives? 

Opie, Iona and Peter Opie, Comps. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1951, p.377. No. 462

As I was going to St. Ives, 

I met a man with seven wives, 

Each wife had seven sacks, 

Each sack had seven cats, 

Each cat had seven kits; 

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, 

How many were going to St. Ives? 

Baring-Gould, William S. and Cecil Baring-Gould, Eds. The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes Old and New. New York: Bramhall House, 1962, p. 270. No. 678