English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. I
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: Jun 01, 1965
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 508
ISBN-13: 9780486214092
Description: The rich field of English balladry was a virgin territory before Francis James Child entered it. Only a few scattered editions of a portion of the ballad texts had been published, each filled with unacknowledged editorial changes and distortions of the original manuscripts. Prof. Child compiled all the extant ballads with all known variations and made them available for the first time, together with his own invaluable commentary, in a single source that maintained absolute fidelity to the original texts. His ten-part study, “The English and Scottish Popular Ballads,” published from 1882 to 1898, became the definitive collection of popular ballads in the English language, never to be superseded.

Besides its great value in its own right, Prof. Child’s work provided the groundwork for all future studies in the field; there is scarcely a ballad student since who has not openly paid tribute to Child and acknowledged the great debt that all present and future students in the field owe to him. This is a major scholarly work, one that no ballad student, folklorist, or student of English literature should be without, And because of the simple, direct appeal of the ballads themselves, this collection should also offer many rewarding hours of pleasure to any general reader with an interest in folklore or folk music. “This great achievement,” as the Dictionary of American Biography so aptly put it, “seems destined to endure as long as the ballads themselves; few scholars have left so lasting a monument.”

The entire collection comprises 305 ballads, many with ten or more versions. Prefacing each ballad section, there is a comprehensive discussion of the history, date, lore, and different versions of the ballad, the place of the ballad in various cultural traditions and how the material in English and Scottish popular ballads is related to that of folktales of Europe and other parts of the world. Included in the latter discussion is a comparison of treatments of the same or similar tales in many languages and cultures, including French, Italian, German, Slavic, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, Lettish, Romaic, Lithuanian, Albanian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Magyar, etc.

This volume I, which includes Parts I & II of the original set, contains ballads 1-53. Among the ballads studied here are “Earl Brand,” “Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight,” “The Twa Sisters,” “Lord Randal,” “Thomas Rymer,” “Tam Lin,” and “Proud Lady Margaret.” Also included in this volume are a biographical sketch of Child by Prof. Kittredge, a portrait of him by G. Kruell, and a section of Additions and Corrections.

Unabridged and unaltered republication of 1st edition (1882, 1884). Biographical sketch by Prof. George L. Kittredge. Frontispiece. Ballads 1-53. Additions and Corrections. xxxi + 508pp. 614 x 94. 21409-5 Paperbound