Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period

Because three book projects are not enough to keep me busy Paul Watt and I have embarked on an editing project with four of the finest music scholars on the planet: Rachel Cowgill, Edward Cray, David Gregory and Derek B. Scott.

For now it may be best to keep details to a minimum, but once work has begun I will set out some details about the project below.

Meanwhile, here are a few useful links and references:

Project News

"Research News," Dually Noted: School of Music—Conservatorium, no. 3 (May 2009): 5 (pdf here).

Books

Claude M. Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and its Music (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1966).

George Speight, Bawdy Songs of the Early Music Hall (Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 1975).

Ed Cray, The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs, 2nd ed. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999).

David Gregory, Victorian Songhunters: The Recovery and Editing of English Vernacular Ballads and Folk Lyrics, 1820–1883 (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2006)

Derek B. Scott, Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris and Vienna (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Links

The late Bruce Olson's online archive can be found here and here.

John Patrick's Bibliography of Erotic Songs, Toasts and Recitations is here (it includes our very own Ed Cray's Checklist of Chapbooks and Songbooks from April 1998).

Jack Horntip's Collection is here

Links to Books on Google Books etc

William Clarke, Every Night Book: Or, Life After Dark (London: T. Richardson, 1827). ¶ Contains descriptions of the Cider Cellar, Coal Hole, Offleys etc, all of which feature in the songbooks.

Pierce Egan, Life in London, or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq. and His Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis, with numerous colour illustrations from Real Life Designed by I. R. and G. Cruikshank (Hotten, 1869).

Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 3rd ed. (1796)

Francis Grose, Lexicon Balatronicum. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence (1811)

Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, revised and corrected … by Pierce Egan (1823).

John Timbs, Club Life of London with Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis during the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries, vol. 1, vol. 2 (London: Richard Bentley, 1866).

[William West], Tavern Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Origin of Signs, Clubs, Coffee-Houses, Streets, City Companies, Wards (London, 1825; repr. New York, 1830).

[UPDATE: 2 July 2016: After all my pictures disappeared (again) I decided to give up on external hosts for large versions (1000px) of my image files and, for now on, will stick with the smaller images (500px), which Blogger is prepared to host.]