Cheap Print and Popular Song in the Nineteenth Century
A Cultural History of the Songster

This is the first book to detail the musical and cultural significance of the songster.

Paul Watt (Edited by), Derek B. Scott (Edited by), Patrick Spedding (Edited by)

9781107159914, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 March 2017

264 pages, 19 b/w illus.
25.3 x 18 x 1.7 cm, 0.7 kg

'…excellent, helpful, informative, and interesting' Ian Newman, Music & Letters

This book is a cultural history of the nineteenth-century songster: pocket-sized anthologies of song texts, usually without musical notation. It examines the musical, social, commercial and aesthetic functions songsters served and the processes by which they were produced and disseminated, the repertory they included, and the singers, printers and entrepreneurs that both inspired their manufacture and facilitated their consumption. Taking an international perspective, chapters focus on songsters from Ireland, North America, Australia and Britain and the varied public and private contexts in which they were used and exploited in oral and print cultures.

1. The nineteenth-century songster: recovering a lost musical artefact Paul Watt, Derek B. Scott and Patrick Spedding
Part I. Production, Function and Commerce: 2. American secular songsters in the nineteenth century: an overview Norm Cohen
3. The prefaces to songsters: the law, aesthetics, performers and performance Paul Watt
4. The genesis of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies, 1808–34 Sarah McCleave
Part II. Politics: 5. The US Presidential campaign songster, 1840–1900 Derek B. Scott
6. Friendship, cosmopolitan connections and late Victorian socialist songbook culture Kate Bowan
7. 'Confound their politics': the political uses of God Save the King-Queen Paul Pickering
8. Charles Robert Thatcher's songsters: politics on the goldfields of Victoria, Australia Mark Pinner
Part III. Nation, Place and Purpose: 9. Rethinking the songster and national-cosmopolitan identity in Lowland Scotland, c.1787–1830 Andrew Greenwood
10. The blackface songster in Britain Michael Pickering
11. Popular songsters and the British military: the case of The Girl I Left Behind Me Anthea Skinner
12. Australian songsters and the Australian folk song movement Graeme Smith.

Subject Areas: Songbooks [AVQS], Musical scores, lyrics & libretti [AVQ], Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Folk & traditional music [AVGH], Romantic music [c 1830 to c 1900 AVGC5], Music: styles & genres [AVG], Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV], Theatre studies [AN], Prints & printmaking [AFH]