Francis James Child (1825-1896)
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, compiled and edited by Professor Francis James Child and published in the last decades of the nineteenth century, is the standard reference for British ballads. To describe a ballad as a “Child ballad” is to immediately authenticate its bona fides.
James Maidment
This Heritage Collectors™ digital edition contains late nineteenth century reprints of A North Countrie Garland (1824) and A New Book of Old Ballads(1843),two of Mr. Maidment’s earliest collections of traditional ballads reprinted and edited by Edmund Marsden Goldsmid.
George Ritchie Kinloch(1796-1877)
This edition includes both of Mr. Kinloch’s published works on ballads: The Ballad Book (1827) and Ancient Scottish Ballads Recovered from Tradition (1827). There are over 350 pages of original text with links to the English and Scottish Popular Ballads (digital edition)
Joseph Ritson (1752-1803)
Compiled by Ritson’s friend and biographer James Haslewood, this collection includes the complete texts of four of Mr. Ritson’s earlier pamphlet publications: The Bishopric Garland (1792), The Yorkshire Garland (1788), The Northumberland Garland (1793), and The North-Country Chorister (1802).
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781-1851)
First published in 1823, this work contains a number of pieces that had not been included in Sir Walter Scott’s Border Minstrelsy, but which were worth preserving. Historical notes from the Edmund Goldsmid 1891 edition have been incorporated into this release; several of Mr. Sharpe’s original art works illustrate the text.
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781-1851)
William Allingham, the "Bard of Ballyshannon", published The Ballad Book in 1864. His work is frequently cited by Professor Child. Yeats said of Allingham "pleasant destiny has made him the poet of his native town, and put "The Winding Banks of Erne" into the mouths of the ballad singers of Ballyshannon"