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Look Inside The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London

The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London

Author: Oskar Cox Jensen, University of East Anglia

Date Published: February 2021
availability: Not yet published - available from October 2024
format: Hardback
isbn: 9781108830560

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About the Authors

For three centuries, ballad-singers thrived at the heart of life in London. One of history's great paradoxes, they were routinely disparaged and persecuted, living on the margins, yet playing a central part in the social, cultural, and political life of the nation. This history spans the Georgian heyday and Victorian decline of those who sang in the city streets in order to sell printed songs. Focusing on the people who plied this musical trade, Oskar Cox Jensen interrogates their craft and their repertoire, the challenges they faced and the great changes in which they were caught up. From orphans to veterans, prostitutes to preachers, ballad-singers sang of love and loss, the soil and the sea, mediating the events of the day to an audience of hundreds of thousands. Complemented by sixty-two recorded songs, this study demonstrates how ballad-singers are figures of central importance in the cultural, social, and political processes of continuity, contestation, and change across the nineteenth-century world.
- Offers the first long-form, interdisciplinary analysis of ballad-singing as a historical practice and provides an invaluable contextual resource
- Examines a figure of central importance in the processes of continuity and change across the Atlantic archipelago
- Presented alongside over sixty recordings of the ballads discussed in the text
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Reviews & endorsements
'There are many books about the British ballad, but this one is different. It's about the men, women and children whose voices made ballads happen. Often despised, frequently ridiculed, these hardy performers now have a champion in Oskar Cox Jensen. He has revealed a human story that is both richly researched and deeply moving.' Roger Parker, King's College London
'As Oskar Cox Jensen says, 'there are precious few forms of historical enquiry to which song is not germane'. His study boldly combines meticulous scholarship with an invigorating imagination, its structure echoing the patterning of the ballads themselves. Oskar Cox Jensen's is one of the most exciting new voices in cultural history.' Jacky Bratton, Royal Holloway
'… The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London provides a more nuanced and even challenging reading …' Ian Haywood, Modern Philology
'… a major advance in scholarship on the history of this ephemeral yet remarkably robust literary form.' Katherine Craik, Times Literary Supplement
'… this book is essential reading and a good solid grounding on which all future work will be built. Physically, Cambridge University Press have produced a book that is a pleasure to hold and read …' Steve Roud, Folk Music Journal
'Oskar Cox Jensen is currently one of the most insightful and prolific scholars of the ballad, and his latest book, The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London, is a welcome addition to the field. By focusing on ballad-singers themselves, an understudied group, Jensen adds new dimensions to scholarly understanding of the place ballad-singers held in society … this is a well-researched, well-written, creative, and original book that has much to offer students of ballad history. The website with recorded songs that accompany it is an added bonus that will bring pleasure to readers.' Robin Ganev, Journal of British Studies
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Product details
- Date Published: February 2021
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108830560
- length: 340 pages
- dimensions: 150 x 230 x 20 mm
- weight: 0.57kg
- availability: Not yet published - available from October 2024
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Musical Examples
List of Recordings
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Representations: Seeing the Singer
Interlude I. 'Oh! Cruel'
2. Progress: Ancient Custom in the Modern City
Interlude II. 'Lord Viscount Maidstone's Address'
3. Performance: The Singer in Action
Interlude III. 'The Storm'
4. Repertoire: Navigating the Mainstream
Interlude IV. 'Old Dog Tray'
Conclusion
Bibliography.
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Author
Oskar Cox Jensen, University of East Anglia
Oskar Cox Jensen is a Senior Research Associate at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of Napoleon and British Song, 1797–1822 (2015), co-editor of Charles Dibdin and Late Georgian Culture (2018) and a special forum of Journal of British Studies: 'Music and Politics in Britain' (2021), and author of numerous book chapters and articles in journals including Studies in Romanticism.