minstrel: Child Ballads

[Greg Lindahl]

Posted for a friend; send replies to eclectic at mit.edu

So, it turns out that an acquaintance of mine is trying to locate all
the copies of the original, unabridged, 19th century edition of
Professor Francis James Child's collection of English and Scottish
Ballads.  It occurred to me, after a quick query turned up the fact
that two of them were in the hands of friends of mine from the SCA,
that here we have a relatively large, easily reachable community of
the sort of people likely to have them.

Apparently there were supposedly 1000 copies in the original
printing, but it appears that some additional copies may have been
printed.  Many but not all of them have a number stamped somewhere in
the front of the book (probably on the copyright page).  There were
several different bindings used, and it could occur as either 5
volumes or 10, I believe.  They are interested in both partial and
complete sets of the HARDCOVER version.  I think the original
printing date was in the 1850s through the 1890s (it was a 10 volume
set, after all -- he didn't write it all at once); it was certainly
before 1904 (when an abridged version came out) and there were no
additional editions produced until DOVER and others reprinted it much
later (in the 1960s).  It is possible that there were TWO 19th
century editions, in which case information about both is of interest.

So, if you have a copy, or part of one, please drop me a line with
details.  If you are on another SCA or other suitable mailing list,
please drop me a line BEFORE reposting this message, so that I can
keep track and avoid multiple postings.  I'd like to reach everyone
in the SCA, but only once each :-)

By the way, if you *do* have a copy of it, even in modest condition,
it's of some value.  Even the dover softcover edition is relatively
hard to come by and worth more than its original price, or so I'm
told.

--Harald Longfellow/Mike Bergman
           eclectic at mit.edu