The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. 5 [Paperback]

Francis James Child (Author)

Book Description

Series: English and Scottish Popular Ballads | Publication Date: September 8, 2003

Published between 1882 and 1898, this definitive collection compiles all the extant ballads with all known variants and features Child's commentary for each work. Volume 5 includes Parts IX and X of the original set — ballads 266-305 — plus a 3000-item bibliography, indexes, glossary, musical selections and an essay by Walter Morris Hart.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Francis James Child (1825-1896) was educated at Harvard, Berlin, and Göttingen, and taught at Harvard for fifty years, in Rhetoric, English, and Modern Languages. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (September 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486431495
• ISBN-13: 978-0486431499
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,585,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent "corrected" edition, April 21, 2006

By 

J. R. Brown (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol 1 (Paperback)

Child's "English and Scottish Popular Ballads" is THE sourcebook for anyone interested in the traditional ballads of the British Isles, and also invaluable to all aficionados of European folklore and folksong in general. For those not up on their terminology, a ballad is a folksong with a plot, and Child's collection covers everything from foul murders to star-crossed lovers to Robin Hood, in five volumes.

I am extremely happy that someone has finally issued an edition incorporating the various addenda and corrections that Child made before his death. There is nothing here that Child did not write, so if you are looking for additional scholarship or commentary you will be disappointed; but the Loomis House edition vastly improves over the Dover facsimiles in completeness and convenience. Additional variants, comments and even some tunes (the one big omission in the original) are placed conveniently near the main text of each category rather than buried in appendices (most of which aren't included in the Dover editions at all). It's well worth the few extra dollars over the Dover books.

My one quibble is that they do not reproduce some of the typographical distinctions that Child occasionally used to indicate different features of a text, but this is overshadowed by all the good points of this edition.

Overall this is a wonderful and affordable edition; I fervently hope that all five volumes are issued as planned (it's been almost a year since Volume 3 came out...). I have no idea why Amazon makes these books so hard to find on their site: fix this, guys!

In summary: Buy this book. Now if someone would only reprint Bertrand Bronson's "The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads" as well....

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars English & Scottish Popular Ballads Vol 1 by Francis James Ch, May 22, 2003

By 

"blarneystoneplayer" (Shanghai China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol 1 (Hardcover)

Superb. For anyone interested in either the words or origins of English & Scottish folk music this is essential. You can settle those arguments (over a beer) as to who has the correct words or the origin.

The biblography needs some getting used to but when you understand it you will find this book a good companion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars finally back in print, May 26, 2004

By 

Clover (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Vol. II (Hardcover)

I first heard of the Child ballads when I was about 13 years old and have been looking for a copy ever since. I was delighted to discover they have been brought back into print. This publication is particularly exciting since the editors have chosen to include musical notation collected by Child but not included in the original publication. Many of the ballads still sung today in Eastern Canada and the US were derived from these ballads, so these books are a facinating study of the earlier origins of these and many other ballads from the british iles.