Broadside Ballad (18 results)

No Binding. Condition: Good. c. 1880. Broadside. 1pp. 9 x 5 ½ inches. Six eight-line stanzas within an ornamental border. Creased at folds with a short (1/4 inch) separation at one-fold. Margins a bit creased and some soiling at top margin. In good condition. A Rare New York City restaurant advertising song-sheet. First line of text: "West Fourteenth Street! can I believe it!!" Mentions fine oysters out of East River, griddle cakes (pancakes), dumplings and pies, etc. OCLC 83195212 locates 2 copies. [New York - Eateries].

Unbound. Condition: Good. First Edition. Single sided printed ballad, approximately 125mm x 315mm in size. Lightly foxed, creased from old folds, couple of minor nicks to edges at folds, but fairly bright. A dialogue between W. and K. about a land sale, where W. notes that K. has enough money to buy the land over the local lord. K. states that W. couldn't even afford the deposit and bemoans Radicals assailing his property rights. W. then advises K. that Death is at hand, and he would do better to retire and marry a widow, rather than a young maid, as "It may be that the Lass for lucre's sake, To the old Man may in appearance take, But youth and beauty 'tis a shame to see, Grafted upon an old and sapless tree". Swanbourne is in Buckinghamshire. Broadside Ballads Online: BOD628 Size: Folio. Broadside.

No Binding. Condition: V.g. Original Ediiton. Broadslip Ballad 32x13cms [12 3/4 x 5 inces]. Attractive half page broadside with a fine and attractive printed border to the verses. Small woodcut to the head of the page depicting a printing press.NO COPY TRACED. Believed to be printed at Suttons Review Office in Nottingham and dated 1830. 8 four line verses extolling the press and reflecting on events of the year just gone.William IV had taken the throne and was welcomed as a Royal Navy sailor and a reformer. Charles and Richard Sutton , printers and proprietors of the liberal Nottingham Review.

Single sheet, verse in thirty-eight stanzas, triple column. First line: "Now ponder well, you parents dear." Followed by two additional stanzas of verse entitled: "A Word of Advice to Executors." Crude woodcut of the fighting ruffians, to the left of the sub-title. Folio. 12-1/2" x 8-1/8" A popular childhood ballad, first registered at Stationers' Hall in 1595, the piece also subsequently published as "The Babes in the Woods." Shipton & Mooney record the first US edition as 1768(?), followed by the Heart & Crown imprint of the 1770s (no copy located, though see Rosenbach 64), then this Bible & Heart version, ca 1785 (date from Evans). A quite rare 18th C. US children's broadside. Edgewear & worming, with some minor loss of text. Faint fold lines. Unobtrusive expert tissue mends. In lower margin, in a period hand, is inked: "Lycia Pratts Verses". A Fair - Good copy. Now housed in an archival mylar sleeve Ca 1785. 1st printing thus, and evidently the 3rd US edition (Evans 19401; Ford 3015; Rosenbach 101).

Broadside Ballad / Song Sheet. 239mm x 162mm. Printed on one side only on thin / flimsy paper. Decorative coloured border ornamental border described in Library Company of Philadelphia, American song sheets (1963), as "De Marsan comic heads," . Sometime small repair to the border, small chip on the edge, otherwise a generally clean copy. Song in seven stanzas; first line: One foot in the stirrup, one hand in the rein. Henry De Marsan is listed at 38 and 60 Chatham Street in the New York City directory for 1860. He is listed at 60 Chatham Street in directories for 1864 through 1877. Broadside ballads are a sub-genre of "street" literature. They were one of the most widespread and enduring forms of street literature, defined as a narrative song or poem printed on one side of a single sheet of paper. While many thousands of broadside ballads were printed in the United States, the market, especially in the nineteenth century, was dominated by a few printers. In Philadelphia, A.W. Auner and J.H. Johnson were the most prolific. In New York, Henry De Marsan and his predecessor, J. Andrews, predominated, followed closely by the Wehman Brothers and Magnus. These printers were active publishers of a variety of street literature. The example offered here is a good example of the genre and in good condition. Wolfe 1750. New York State Library SCO BD 0920.

First line: "Have you heard of the rumpus there was I declare, All the Popes in the world was in Belgrave Square" With, The Wonderful Crocodile. "Now list ye landmen all to me, To tell you truth I'm bound, What happen'd to me by going to sea" According to Burl Ives this tune was based on an old Irish air. John and Alan Lomax collected it in Nova Scotia in 1921 from a man who said it was a song he'd known since he was a boy - "one of thoses that used to be roared out in the back rooms of taverns frequented by seamen forty or so years ago." This is a broadside ballad were sold for half a penny or penny on the streets in London, Manchester and other British cities during the 19th century. (Once newspapers became more widespread and cheaper, they largely displaced this type of street literature.) Printed on cheap tissue paper, they included religious warnings, political arguments, satire, comedy, bawdy tales, crime news, fantastic tales, love and relationship advice and calls for social reform. In some cases the printer would suggest a familiar tune that would fit the lyrics provided. Most had a woodcut illustration, although it may have been unrelated to the subject matter. Many broadside ballads in London were printed in the Seven Dials district. They were sold in large numbers on street corners, in squares and at fairs by travelling ballad singers and also pinned on the walls of alehouses, where they were sung and read. However, because they were meant to be disposable, presaging both the consumer culture and mass media, relatively few have survived. 7 1/2 by 10 inches. Edges slt ruffled, o/w vgc.

Condition: Good + overall. That's Where You're Wrong' includes references to emigration to Canada, a spirited revolutionary song: "Rise, Britons rise, and ring your voices thro' the land" This is a broadside ballad were sold for half a penny or penny on the streets in London, Manchester and other British cities during the 19th century. (Once newspapers became more widespread and cheaper, they largely displaced this type of street literature.) Printed on cheap tissue paper, they included religious warnings, political arguments, satire, comedy, bawdy tales, crime news, fantastic tales, love and relationship advice and calls for social reform. In some cases the printer would suggest a familiar tune that would fit the lyrics provided. Most had a woodcut illustration, although it may have been unrelated to the subject matter. Many broadside ballads in London were printed in the Seven Dials district. They were sold in large numbers on street corners, in squares and at fairs by travelling ballad singers and also pinned on the walls of alehouses, where they were sung and read. However, because they were meant to be disposable, presaging both the consumer culture and mass media, relatively few have survived. 7 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches, toned, edges chipped, fold line repaired.

Broadside. 6ĵ" X 10". Very good. Numerous edge chips along right side and bit on lower edge only slightly encroaching on decorative border. This crudely printed broadside ballad (undated, but circa 1861) includes a thick decorative patriotic border featuring red and blue stars and stripes, olive-branch clutching American Eagle, etc., with publisher's data ("H. De Marsan, Publisher / 54, Chatham St. / N.Y.") at bottom center of border. Sung to the tune of "Marshal Ney," a popular tune celebrating the Napoleonic figure, this Civil War tune celebrates the 69th New York Infantry Regiment, the "Fighting Irish" or "Fighting Sixty-Ninth." Two stanzas and one chorus are featured, the chorus reading: "Right and left -- left and right: / We fought the Rebels with all our might; / Brave CORCORAN did wounded fall, / And HAGGERTY died by a Traitor's ball." Irish-born Michael Corcoran (1827-63) led the 69th at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, in which he was taken prisoner, and Irish-born Captain James Haggerty, the first member of the 69th to die, was reportedly killed by a Louisiana Zouave, which also included many Irishmen. These "penny ballads" were all the rage during much of the 19th century, and were invariably printed on thin, delicate stock and sold by street vendors. A quite attractive example of this rare survivor. Inkstamped on verso is "Geo. F. Hambrecht" -- a well-known Civil War collector and noted Lincoln scholar (1871-1943) who founded the Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin and served as director of the Wisconsin State Board of Vocational Education.

Single sheet 4to broadside, illus. & four woodcut designs between the two columns of text; trimmed close at lower edge affecting imprint & two words in left hand column, laid on to card causing sl. creasing. 25 x 18cm. Incorrectly dated '1840' in pencil. Not in Bodleian Ballads Online; not on Copac or OCLC. A ballad relating the tragic tale of a deadly fire on Crawford Street, Marylebone, in March 1846, causing the death of four members of the Butters family. The fire was much reported in the London press with the coroner's inquest, on March 31st recording that although the fire was most likely caused by a gas leak, there was insufficient evidence to prove it.

First Edition. Small broadside (16x8.5cm.) printed within typographically decorative border on yellow stock. Miniscule loss at top left-hand margin, else Near Fine. Printed at head of title "8 & 7." Reconstruction-era three verse ballad broadside addressed to Dolly Varden (not /the/ Dolly Varden of Charles Dickens' novel "Barnaby Rudge," though the name was hugely popular as a result of the work, and inspired a fashion craze and the name of a trout). The text makes mention of the 1872 Crédit Mobilier fraud; promotes the work of the Patrons of Husbandry ("Dolly, do you love the 'Granges,' / Do you love to be well fed, / Will you shield them from all danger, / While they reap the daily bread?"); and attacks the spread of carpet-bagging in the South ("Search the carpet-bagger well, / And the pack of high-tone stealers, / Judge, and send them all to L.".

Single leaf broadside, edges uncut. Printed in four columns. With three woodcut vignettes. Old central vertical fold. A trifle creased and marked. A rare survival of a broadside ballad in which the captain of a ship bound for India discovers on board the young servant girl whom he had pledged to wed but then abandoned. He finds that she is carrying his child and, though at first angered by her 'betrayal', agrees to marry. However, 'fortune to them proves unkind' and a storm descends upon them, sweeping the maiden into the sea. When the captain finds her body 'floating on the main' two days later, he casts himself overboard to 'share the same fate'. The publishing house of John Pitts (1765-1844) was responsible for a prodigious output of cheap, popular printing in the first half of the nineteenth-century. COPAC records copies at just two locations (BL and Hull); OCLC adds two further (Adelaide and Toronto). Size: Dimensions 360 x 250 mm.

single slip broadside (approx. 250 x 90 mm), drop head title below a woodcut illustration, mounted at head to an album leaf, browned except for the top eighth, creased below woodcut, a number of tiny holes with slight effect on the title and imprint . A humourous ballad ridiculing some Fordingbridgers who were duped in to 'hunting' some hares which were only stuffed exemplars. The cant name for Fordingbridgers we learn is 'Blue-skins'. We have not located any other broadside printing of this ballad, or indeed this one. The text appeared in The Sporting Magazine as 'The Hare Hunters' in November 1809, but the imprint here makes this earlier (note the printer's carelessness with his own address). On the verso of the album leaf are 3 engravings of fashionable figures, apparently taken from the Pocket Book, For the Year 1773.

Single leaf broadside, edges uncut. Shaving to foot, with loss of imprint. A remarkably rare survival of 'three-half-pence' broadside verse satire in which a fight breaks out among a group of Dutchmen in a Chelsea tavern. The title of the bawdy ballad is a corruption of the Dutch expression 'donder en bliksem' meaning 'thunder and lightning'. ESTC records a single copy (Oxford). ESTC N71592. Size: Dimensions 200 x 290 mm.

Single sheet oblong folio broadside, large woodcut illus. 12 x 14cm, four columns of verse; old tear to lower margin, previously tipped into an album. 24 x 35cm. v.g. ESTC records six versions of this ballad, all with only one location. This example, printed at 13 Water-Lane, dating between 1802 and 1809, is not recorded on Copac. Also called 'Pretty Polly' or 'The Cruel Ship's Carpenter' this version tells the tale of poor Molly who is seduced, impregnated, murdered and buried in a shallow grave by her lover William. Haunted by his actions and visited by Molly's ghost, William confesses his crimes, seeks forgiveness and promptly dies.

An ephemeral broadside ballad, detailing the story of Jane Shore, a mistress of Edward IV and a popular cultural reference for many centuries. Shore's heavily fictionalized story featured many elements considered to have mass appeal in the era: a sexually voracious woman, a relationship that transcended social hierarchies, and an ending that punished transgressive behaviour. In Mrs. Jane Shore, the eponymous character is described as a married woman who became King Edward's concubine and "lived in the court/With lords and ladies of great sort". Whilst she had influence over the King, she ensured "to help the people that were poor" and "sav'd their lives condemned to die". Regardless, her infidelity ultimately led to her social disgrace, and she died in a ditch in East London. As detailed in the ballad, urban mythology claimed that her unfortunate death gave the Shoreditch district its name. Ballads such as this were sung in a variety of communal spaces, including pubs, lodging houses, and the streets, and typically took criminal or socially deviant behaviour as their subject. In their own time, broadside ballads were believed "to foster immorality and to glorify crime" (O'Brien, p. 16). More recent interpretations appreciate their literary and social value, and consider that "their job was to voice tensions, to work over the contradictions of human life" (Gammon, p. 237). Vic Gammon, "Song, Sex, and Society in England, 1600-1850", Folk Music Journal, vol. 4, no. 3, 1982; Ellen L. O'Brien, "'The Most Beautiful Murder': The Transgressive Aesthetics of Murder in Victorian Street Ballads", Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 28, no. 1, 2000. Landscape single sheet (362 x 252 mm), printed in columns. A little chipped at the edges, but overall a well-preserved copy of a fragile publication.

A ballad telling a tragic tale of lovers tricked apart by "cruel" and "covetous" parents. Similar ballads often feature an unfaithful and avaricious antiheroine, who suffers a cautionary downfall. Here, however, Susan is a "harmless maid", and it is families who are warned against prioritizing wealth over the happiness of the younger generation. The love triangle between a woman, her husband, and a sailor was a common trope in 17th- to 19th-century ballads, but most had several key differences to this version. The woman was normally the one to prioritize financial gain, unlike Susan, who declares that "No wealth nor riches shall make me disloyal". The sailor was typically a demonic character, sometimes the Devil in disguise, whereas "sweet William" is an honest and faithful man. In most ballads, only the woman dies, while the sailor-demon escapes; both Susan and William perish here. Such entertaining ballads were an outlet for people "to voice tensions, to work over the contradictions of human life" (Gammon, p. 237). The Plymouth Tragedy reflects an exasperation with the requirements on the young, especially women, to conform with their parents' desires at the expense of their own happiness. Vic Gammon, "Song, Sex, and Society in England, 1600-1850", Folk Music Journal, vol. 4, no. 3, 1982. Single sheet (255 x 360 mm), printed in columns. Woodcut vignette. A little nicked at edges, old centre fold reinforced on verso with paper; overall a well-preserved copy of a fragile publication.

Eleven verses, set in two columns, as performed by Miss Crofts and Master Wilton. Untrimmed, laid down on modern paper within a double ruled border. v.g. 35.5 x 24.5cm. Unrecorded on ESTC, or WorldCat. In 1782 the equestrian Charles Hughes, together with Charles Dibdin the Elder, opened the Royal Circus (later the Surrey Theatre) in St. George's Fields, a few hundred yards south of Westminster Bridge. 'The licences granted to Astley's and the Royal Circus 'for public dancing and music' and 'for other public entertainments of the like kind' were broadly interpreted to include not only displays of equestrianism and circus acts but a variety of lesser dramatic entertainments as well.' Originally these consisted of burlettas, pantomimes, and ballets d'action, for whose performance a separate 'dramatic' company (as opposed to the 'equestrian' company) of professional actors, singers, and dancers was engaged. At the same time the circus artists, in keeping with the versatility that has always been expected of them, frequently helped out as well. Thus a graceful equestrienne might interpret the role of a young prince in the opening stage spectacle, adding a piquant note by dressing in close-fitting breeches, while a featured rope-dancer or strongman might appear as Harlequin or a bereaved father in the concluding pantomime.' ref: Saxon, A.H. The Circus as Theatre: Astley's and Its Actors in the Age of Romanticism. 1975. Miss Crofts (fl 1786-1790) first came to public attention acting and dancing at Hughes's Royal Circus in St George's Fields. On 28th October 1786 she was an unspecified character in the burletta 'The Peckham Gardener'. On 31st October the Royal Circus bill announced amongst other pleasures, 'N.B. Hughes's famous horse Chiliby, will be rode every Evening this week by Miss Croft.' Ref: A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. SIU Press, 1975.

First edition. Single sheet measuring 250 x 185mm and printed in two columns to recto. Some edgewear to margins not affecting text; a bit of foxing and toning largely confined to margins. A scarce and delicate survivor, OCLC documents only one example (at the National Library of Scotland). The present is the only example on the market. The Dandy Wife is narrated by a man who aimed "to choose me out a loving wife" at the age of twenty-one, but whose experience becomes a warning to "all young men of high renown": "If you want a tidy wife, Beware of a boarding school." What unfolds is a satire of how the marriage economy is affected when women have access to knowledge -- intellectual and physical -- and how by meeting a man's superficial expectations a woman can fulfill her own more pressing needs. Thinking that a boarding school girl will have the innocence, submissiveness, and domestic skill he desires, the narrator selects a wife from among their ranks. Thinking only of what he can obtain from such a bargain, he is unprepared for what an educated woman brings into his house. The Dandy Wife he describes understands the commodity value of her own beauty and material adornment, and that these are her key means for acquiring wealth of her own. "She takes one-half of what I earn, In drinking gin and tea; Besides such frills and furbelows My Dandy Wife does wear.Her sleeves upon her dandy gown, Oh! Lack, they're such a size, You'd think they were two balloons that in the air would rise." Aside from staying on par with fashion trends, her clothing assists her in avoiding domestic tasks she abhors. She refuses to do laundry more than monthly, and through ridiculous cooking failures she rapidly establishes that the kitchen is not a showcase for her skillset. Accustomed to a life of learning, she is not trained to conduct domestic business. By the ballad's end, it becomes clear that the Dandy Wife was savvier in managing a marriage than her husband was. For not only does her superior intellect help her carve out a more satisfying role, but she also has physical knowledge that predates him: "The day that I was married, I thought I'd got a charming maid, But I was much deceived.For scarce five months we'd married been, When she had a darling son.".