My Old Doll by Ruth Collie (1927)

"My Old Doll" is a short narrative poem by Ruth Collie told in the first-person voice of a grown woman reflecting on the childhood doll her father gave her when she was three. Deemed "too old" for dolls, the speaker had packed the toy away, privately imagining that a daughter of her own might one day cherish it, never anticipating that fate would instead hand her a mischievous nephew with no interest in a doll's charms. The poem's action turns on a recurring, gently comic ritual of almost-giving-away. Tidying her belongings one spring, the speaker rediscovers the doll and, moved by affection, resolves to pass it on to her young niece Barbara ("Babs"), reasoning the child is old enough to love it as she once did. Yet when the moment comes to actually wrap the doll in paper and string for its journey, she is overcome with unexpected grief, her eyes stinging with tears, and she cannot go through with it — the doll goes back into its place, an act she wryly calls "absurd" even as she owns the pain behind it. A year passes, and the cycle repeats: she again takes up the doll, this time earmarking her for another young relative, a second niece also named Ruth, smooths her dress and irons her lace as if preparing her for the parting — and once more cannot release her, returning the doll to its old spot instead. The poem closes on the speaker's rueful, self-aware admission that the girl she once was still lives within her and simply refuses to let go of "Moll," the doll she calls her first, last, and best-loved. The piece is less a story of external event than an interior study of nostalgia and attachment: each attempt at giving the doll away becomes an occasion for the adult speaker to rediscover how vividly the sentimental world of childhood persists beneath adult composure. Structurally, the poem builds through repetition — two parallel, failed attempts at gift-giving, separated by the passage of a year — using that repetition to demonstrate that the pull of memory only strengthens with each renewed effort to relinquish it. The tone throughout is light and self-deprecating, with the speaker gently mocking her own sentimentality ("Absurd? I know.") even as she surrenders to it, giving the poem its characteristic blend of humor and tenderness. The doll itself, named Moll only in the poem's final line, functions as a stand-in for lost childhood and the persistence of the past within the present self, and the poem ultimately affirms that some attachments outlast logic, practicality, or even the ostensible purpose of the object itself, remaining treasured precisely because they resist rational relinquishment.

By Ruth Collie · First published 1927 · Genre: Sentimental Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Lyric Poetry · 292 words

First lines

"Too old," they cried, "with dolls to play. " And so I gently laid / away the doll my father bought for me when I was only half past / three. One day, I mused, my own wee girl may hug that doll and kiss / each curl. How could I tell a roguish boy would treat with scorn my / childhood's joy? One spring, when tidying things anew, my dolly came / again to view. I hugged her and I smoothed her head. "You'll go to / Barbara," I said. "My niece, my golden Babs, is four, she'll love / you as I did of yore. " But when it came to paper, string, I felt my / eyes with salt tears sting. I put that dolly back again! Absurd? I / know. But oh! the pain. Then later, when a year had passed, I took / that doll, and held her fast. Said I, "To little Ruth you'll go, / that niece of mine will love you so. " I smoothed her dress and / ironed her lace -- then put her back in her old place. It's very, very / clear to me, the little girl I used to be refuses to relinquish Moll, / the first, and last, and best-loved Doll!

• Open reader

Genres

• Sentimental Poetry — The poem is fundamentally centered on emotional attachment to a childhood object, exploring the narrator's inability to release a beloved doll despite repeated attempts, making sentimentality its defining characteristic.
• Narrative Poetry — The work employs a clear narrative structure with chronological progression, describing specific events across time: the doll's acquisition, multiple attempts to give it away, and the ultimate resolution.
• Lyric Poetry — The poem expresses the narrator's personal emotions, inner conflicts, and reflective introspection, using first-person voice to convey subjective feeling rather than external events alone.
• Autobiographical Poetry — The poem is constructed as a personal memoir of the author's own experience with a childhood doll, inviting readers to accept it as truthful recollection.

Tags

children's literature · picture book · dolls · toys · childhood · nostalgia · imagination · play · friendship · family · memories · growing up

What this Textopian page supports

My Old Doll is listed on Textopian as a short story by Ruth Collie, dated 1927 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

• Work type: Short story
• Author: Ruth Collie
• Date: 1927 CE
• Language: English
• Genres: Sentimental Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Autobiographical Poetry, Memory and Reminiscence
• Length: 292 words
• Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
• Reading fit: Very Easy (5th Grade or below)

Good citation fit

• Work identity for My Old Doll by Ruth Collie
• Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
• Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
• Readability and classroom-planning context
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More by Ruth Collie

• The Old Sampler (1927)
• Everyday Religion (1927)
• The Thoroughbred Mongrel (1927)
• The Week Round (1927)
• Her Troublesome Husband (1927)
• The String Bag (1927)
• Life Grows Fairer (1927)
• To the First-Born (1927)
• All works by Ruth Collie