Ashton John Compiler (3 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. This copy is an Ex-Library Book with the usual stamps and markings. Blue boards with gilt lettering on spine. Spine is rounded. Binding is tight. Corners are sharp. Content is clean, no markings. Light sun faded. Includes: Index with Notes by the Editor. B/W Illustrations. 271 p. 7.02 x 10.06 x 1 inches. 1.78 lb. Numbered and Signed by the Aut.

John Ashton also wrote several other books on English popular culture: Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, the Leadenhall Press publication A History of English Lotteries, and more. Octavo. viii, 454 pp. Many woodcut illustrations in the chapbook style throughout. With an extensive bibliography. Original pictorial green cloth decoratively stamped in black and gilt. Some rubbing to head of spine and some general shelfware. Dark green coated endpapers. Foxing and toning to edges. A very good copy. First edition.

The present work collects almost 130 sea shanties and other songs written by sailors from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The songs are organized into sections according to relevant themes in the nautical life: sea fights, press gangs, disasters, life ashore, and love. The miscellaneous section at the end of the book covers everything from ÒDavy JonesÕs LockerÓ and ÒThe Downfall of PiracyÓ to ÒThe Female SmugglerÓ to ÒThe SailorÕs WidowÕs Lament.Ó 8], [98], [2, ads] ff. With 32 facsimiles of nautical song broadsides mounted on brown paper stubs. With a total of 200 half-page illustrations, initials, headpieces, and tailpieces (some by Joseph Crawhall). Half vellum over blue paper boards, gilt spine, gilt coat-of-arms on front cover. Covers stamped in black and red. Some yellowing to vellum, as usual. Some wear to seam where vellum meets paper on front board. Front hinge somewhat tender. Some rubbing to extremities. Edges untrimmed. Some toning to endpapers and some occasional toning to leaves from brown paper stubs. Twentieth century bookplate (Ex Libris Oliver Collection) to front pastedown. Overall a very good, clean copy of this lively and ambitious Leadenhall Press production. First edition.