The phrase 'to play bo peep' was in use from the 14th century to refer to the punishment of being stood in a pillory. The additional verses are first recorded in the earliest printed version in a version of Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus in 1810. There are references to a children's game called 'bo-peep', from the 16th century, including one in Shakespeare's King Lear (Act I Scene iv), for which ' bo-peep' is thought to refer to the children's game of peek-a-boo, but there's no evidence that the rhyme existed earlier than the 18th century. The earliest record of this rhyme is in a manuscript of around 1805, which contains only the first verse which references the adult Bo Peep, called 'Little' because she was short and not because she was young. She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye, and over the hillocks went rambling, and tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, to tack each again to its lambkin. It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray into a meadow hard by, there she espied their tails side by side, all hung on a tree to dry. Then up she took her little crook, determined for to find them she found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed, for they'd left their tails behind them. Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep, and dreamt she heard them bleating but when she awoke, she found it a joke, for they were still a-fleeting. The following additional verses are often added to the rhyme:

William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for the rhyme, 1902

Mother goose club little bo peep