by Davis, Jr., Arthur Kyle, ed.

Published in 1929 by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Edition: First
Binding: Hardback
Condition: Near fine
Comments: “Traditional Ballads of Virginia, Collected Under the Auspices of the Virginia Folk-lore Society” is an important book to scholars of folk music, but should be of interest to anyone with a general interest in American folklore, English literature (particularly Southern literature), Americana, and even country music. It is the first collection of American ballads actually collected by Americans—Francis J. Child of Harvard set the standard with his five-volume work, “The English and Scottish Popular Ballads,” which he gleaned from public and private libraries and archives in Britain in the late nineteenth century—these are still known as the “Child ballads”—but, of course, those lyrics (he thought of them much more as poems than as songs) were across the pond. Child noted, almost in passing, that several of the works he collected, at least as variations, could also be found in America, but it wasn’t until the English—not American—folklorists Cecil J. Sharp and Maud Karples visited Virginia in 1916 and 1918 that anyone pursued the subject further.

By then, the Virginia Folklore Society had been founded, and Sharp and Karples gave it copies of the ballads they collected. That served as the impetus for greater things. The VFS took it as its mission to collect Virginia versions of the Child ballads, but also whatever other ballads they could find, right at a time when academics were interested in classifying folk material as classic literature and composers and musicologists were treating folk tunes as important works in their own right. The VFS worked closely with the Virginia State Educational Association and Virginia teachers in general to collect ballads in every county in the state—this time, from the actual people who knew and sang them as they had been handed down through the generations, not from printed and published material, which was a marked difference from how Child had collected his ballads. Not only that, at the teachers’ urging, the VFS was much more interested in the tunes of these ballads than Child had been, and VFS made a point of recording them (in pen and ink, as this was the period before audio recording machinery was easily portable) when possible.

This groundbreaking work is the result. It includes not just the poetry of the ballads and their variations recorded in a systematic way, it includes a wonderful and lengthy introduction explaining the collectors’ methods, including some of their first-hand experiences with the people they met in the backroads and hollows, as well as the hows and whys of the project. (In fact, the introduction is so interesting, it could stand alone as worthwhile to the general reader even if the ballads themselves weren’t attached!) More than that, this copy includes ten pages of photographs of the ballad collectors, and individuals they collected the ballads from, and the places the ballads came from. There is also a color, fold-out map of Virginia attached to the back end papers and an index. The text block is tight and straight, solid, undamaged hinges. There are no marks, folds, tears, or creases on the pages, and the only discoloration is the light toning that is to be expected with a book of this age. The top edge of the text block is gilt; the fore edge is semi-deckled; the bottom edge is rough trimmed. This copy is bound in maroon cloth, with a blind stamped decorative edge around the front cover. The title and author are stamped in gilt lettering on the spine, with gilt lines at the top and bottom and the seal of Harvard University stamped in gilt for decoration. There is some minor shelf wear on the spine and on the corners of the covers, and some very slight bumping on the corners, but other than that the book is in excellent condition. It really is quite a find.

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Seller Inventory #: 0000491