231 résultats
18285421London: T. Birt 1828. First edition. Single sheet measuring 250 x 185mm and printed in two columns to recto. Some edgewear to margins not affecting text; a bit of foxing and toning largely confined to margins. A scarce and delicate survivor OCLC documents only one example at the National Library of Scotland. The present is the only example on the market.<br /> <br /> The Dandy Wife is narrated by a man who aimed "to choose me out a loving wife" at the age of twenty-one but whose experience becomes a warning to "all young men of high renown": "If you want a tidy wife Beware of a boarding school." What unfolds is a satire of how the marriage economy is affected when women have access to knowledge -- intellectual and physical -- and how by meeting a man's superficial expectations a woman can fulfill her own more pressing needs.<br /> <br /> Thinking that a boarding school girl will have the innocence submissiveness and domestic skill he desires the narrator selects a wife from among their ranks. Thinking only of what he can obtain from such a bargain he is unprepared for what an educated woman brings into his house. The Dandy Wife he describes understands the commodity value of her own beauty and material adornment and that these are her key means for acquiring wealth of her own. "She takes one-half of what I earn In drinking gin and tea; Besides such frills and furbelows My Dandy Wife does wear.Her sleeves upon her dandy gown Oh! Lack they're such a size You'd think they were two balloons that in the air would rise." Aside from staying on par with fashion trends her clothing assists her in avoiding domestic tasks she abhors. She refuses to do laundry more than monthly and through ridiculous cooking failures she rapidly establishes that the kitchen is not a showcase for her skillset. Accustomed to a life of learning she is not trained to conduct domestic business. <br /> <br /> By the ballad's end it becomes clear that the Dandy Wife was savvier in managing a marriage than her husband was. For not only does her superior intellect help her carve out a more satisfying role but she also has physical knowledge that predates him: "The day that I was married I thought I'd got a charming maid But I was much deceived.For scarce five months we'd married been When she had a darling son. T. Birt unknown
1809174972London: printed and sold by Jennings c.1809. A ballad telling a tragic tale of lovers tricked apart by "cruel" and "covetous" parents. Similar ballads often feature an unfaithful and avaricious antiheroine who suffers a cautionary downfall. Here however Susan is a "harmless maid" and it is families who are warned against prioritizing wealth over the happiness of the younger generation. The love triangle between a woman her husband and a sailor was a common trope in 17th- to 19th-century ballads but most had several key differences to this version. The woman was normally the one to prioritize financial gain unlike Susan who declares that "No wealth nor riches shall make me disloyal". The sailor was typically a demonic character sometimes the Devil in disguise whereas "sweet William" is an honest and faithful man. In most ballads only the woman dies while the sailor-demon escapes; both Susan and William perish here. Such entertaining ballads were an outlet for people "to voice tensions to work over the contradictions of human life" Gammon p. 237. The Plymouth Tragedy reflects an exasperation with the requirements on the young especially women to conform with their parents' desires at the expense of their own happiness. Single sheet 255 x 360 mm printed in columns. Woodcut vignette. A little nicked at edges old centre fold reinforced on verso with paper; overall a well-preserved copy of a fragile publication. Vic Gammon "Song Sex and Society in England 1600-1850" Folk Music Journal vol. 4 no. 3 1982. unknown
1810174973London: printed and sold by J. Pitts c.1810. An ephemeral broadside ballad detailing the story of Jane Shore a mistress of Edward IV and a popular cultural reference for many centuries. Shore's heavily fictionalized story featured many elements considered to have mass appeal in the era: a sexually voracious woman a relationship that transcended social hierarchies and an ending that punished transgressive behaviour. In Mrs. Jane Shore the eponymous character is described as a married woman who became King Edward's concubine and "lived in the court/With lords and ladies of great sort". Whilst she had influence over the King she ensured "to help the people that were poor" and "sav'd their lives condemned to die". Regardless her infidelity ultimately led to her social disgrace and she died in a ditch in East London. As detailed in the ballad urban mythology claimed that her unfortunate death gave the Shoreditch district its name. Ballads such as this were sung in a variety of communal spaces including pubs lodging houses and the streets and typically took criminal or socially deviant behaviour as their subject. In their own time broadside ballads were believed "to foster immorality and to glorify crime" O'Brien p. 16. More recent interpretations appreciate their literary and social value and consider that "their job was to voice tensions to work over the contradictions of human life" Gammon p. 237. Landscape single sheet 362 x 252 mm printed in columns. A little chipped at the edges but overall a well-preserved copy of a fragile publication. Vic Gammon "Song Sex and Society in England 1600-1850" Folk Music Journal vol. 4 no. 3 1982; Ellen L. O'Brien "'The Most Beautiful Murder': The Transgressive Aesthetics of Murder in Victorian Street Ballads" Victorian Literature and Culture vol. 28 no. 1 2000. unknown
179528043London 1795 1795. The only recorded edition. ESTC T204804 recording a single copy at Cambridge which contains the same apothecary's stamp. OCLC and COPAC record that same copy; Roud Folk Song Index V1851; and see Broadside Ballads Online at the Bodleian Library which also notes the apothecary's stamp. Paper repaired on the verso; some soiling and smudges; chipped in the upper margin with some loss but only to the blank margins; two small remains of mounting tape on the verso in the upper margin; a rare survival. Broadside 36 x 12 cm woodcut headpiece. Nine four-line stanzas. Attractive oval stamp in the lower margin of Peter Henry Chymist. A typical doggerel poem and somewhat bawdy written in the form of a slip ballad which begins "You young men all both far and near / Listen a while and you shall hear / Take care you're not drawn in a snare / By the girls that do love brandy / Wack Fla la &c." And in the fourth stanza: "'Tis on your backs girls you must lie / Pray which of you would this deny / A dish of tea or brandy." Etc. <br/><br/> [London, 1795?] unknown books
2014108521Museum. New. 2014. Paperback. 0942949382 . FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request - IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT - Flawless copy brand new pristine never opened - -- with a bonus offer-- . Museum paperback
41475Boston: Sold at the Bible & Heart in Cornhill n. d. Ca 1785. 1st printing thus and evidently the 3rd US edition Evans 19401; Ford 3015; Rosenbach 101. Now housed in an archival mylar sleeve. Edgewear & worming with some minor loss of text. Faint fold lines. Unobtrusive expert tissue mends. In lower margin in a period hand is inked: "Lycia Pratts Verses". A Fair - Good copy. Single sheet verse in thirty-eight stanzas triple column. First line: "Now ponder well you parents dear." Followed by two additional stanzas of verse entitled: "A Word of Advice to Executors." Crude woodcut of the fighting ruffians to the left of the sub-title. Folio. 12-1/2" x 8-1/8" <br/><br/>A popular childhood ballad first registered at Stationers' Hall in 1595 the piece also subsequently published as "The Babes in the Woods." <br /> <br />Shipton & Mooney record the first US edition as 1768 followed by the Heart & Crown imprint of the 1770s no copy located though see Rosenbach 64 then this Bible & Heart version ca 1785 date from Evans. <br /> <br />A quite rare 18th C. US children's broadside. Sold at the Bible & Heart, in Cornhill unknown books
