It's been established at length that Humpty Dumpty was never referred to as an egg like being but that's not entirely true. In Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" published in 1871 there is a chapter titled "Humpty Dumpty"* though that was the first account of Humpty as an egg like being. Well before the book during the English Civil War (1642-1649) Humpty Dumpty was the name of a cannon stationed on the walls of Colchester. The wall became heavily damaged and the cannon fell and broke into many pieces and couldn't be salvaged. Or if you don't like that rendition the name Humpty Dumpty was also used to refer to overweight people and could have been Charles I himself.
*“…the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was Humpty Dumpty himself. ‘It can’t be anybody else!’ she said to herself. ‘I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.'”
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