Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America : The Interface Between Print and Oral Traditions

In recent years, the assumption that traditional songs originated from a primarily oral tradition has been challenged by research into 'street literature' - that is, the cheap printed broadsides and chapbooks that poured from the presses of jobbing printers from the late sixteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth. Not only are some traditional singers known to have learned songs from printed sources, but most of the songs were composed by professional writers and reached the populace in printed form. Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America engages with the long-running debate over the origin of traditional songs by examining street literature's interaction with, and influence on, oral traditions. Introduction / Steve Roud -- Was There Really A Mass Extinction Of Old Ballads In The Romantic Period? / David Atkinson -- Birmingham Broadsides And Oral Tradition / Roy Palmer -- The Newcastle Song Chapbooks / Peter Wood -- Forgotten Broadsides And The Song Tradition Of Scots Travellers / Chris Wright -- Welsh Balladry And Literacy / Ffion Mair Jones -- Ballads And Ballad Singers: Samuel Lover's Tour Of Dublin In 1830 / John Moulden -- Henry J. Wehman And Cheap Print In Late Nineteenth-century America / Norm Cohen -- I'd Have You To Buy It And Learn It: Sabine Baring-gould, His Fellow Collectors, And Street Literature / Martin Graebe -- The Popular Ballad And The Book Trade: Bateman's Tragedy Versus The Demon Lover / David Atkinson -- Mediating Maria Marten: Comparative And Contextual Studies Of The Red Barn Ballads / Thomas Pettitt -- Old Brown's Daughter: Re-contextualizing A Locally Composed Newfoundland Folk Song / Anna Kearney Guigné. Edited By David Atkinson And Steve Roud. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 263-278) And Index. In recent years, the assumption that traditional songs originated from a primarily oral tradition has been challenged by research into 'street literature'. Not only are some traditional singers known to have learned songs from printed sources, but most of the songs were composed by professional writers. This volume engages with the long-running debate over the origin of traditional songs by examining street literature's interaction with and influence on oral traditions