Title: Handbook of early American sheet music, 1768-1889
First published: 1977
Description: For collectors of early sheet music, for libraries maintaining collections of American music, for musicologists concerned with American popular music, for musicians who need original, authentic texts, for others concerned with premodern music publication in America, Dichter and Shapiro (it is almost as well-known by the authors' names as Grove's or Baker) is the single, indispensable reference work. It classifies typologically and gives first-edition information on more than 650 pieces of popular music printed in America, music from 1768 to 1889. The first part of the book gives a classified listing of early American sheet music. Dichter and Shapiro offer a definitive bibliographic description of a broad cross section of first editions of American songs, most of which originated in America.^

Following a rough chronological order, the authors list hundreds of first editions in such collectors' categories as "Music of the American Revolution," "War with Tripoli," "Early Indian Items," "Early Negro Songs," "Lafayette," "Ship Items," "Tobacco Items," "Temperance Items," "Railroad Items," "Early Cali-fornia Imprints," "College Songs," "Baseball Items," "Early Comic Songs," "Famous Songs," "Portraits on Music," and dozens of other classifications. There are also separate bibliographic sections on such important songs as "The Star Spangled Banner," "Yankee Doodle," "Home Sweet Home," etc. For each song the authors give composer, lyricist, publisher, place and year of publication, musical arrangement, a full description of the actual sheet music (dedication, number of pages, engraver, price, plate mark, extra verses, peculiarities, etc.), description of illustration and type of song. Part Two is a directory of every known early American music publisher.^

It gives the names, years of existence, changes, and addresses of each publisher. Part Three contains a unique list, of lithographers and artists who designed or decorated music covers up to 1870. These sections offer the collector an invaluable guide for dating undated editions of songs. For this edition, there are 76 clear reproductions of -song covers replacing most of the original 32 illustrations.
Subjects: Bibliography, Music, Publishers and publishing, Music printing, Music, american, bibliography