Sources etc.

This is an evolving list, and I keep seeing things that I should have put here but haven’t! Always soon to be updated…

Click on a heading to expand it…

  • Peter Bailey; Leisure and Class in Victorian England, Rational recreation and the conquest for control 1830-1885; London 1987
  • JS Bratton; The Victorian Popular Ballad; London, 1975
  • JS Bratton editor; Music Hall Performance and Style; Milton Keynes 1986
  • Kate Bowan and Paul A Pickering Sounds of Liberty Manchester University Press 2017
  • Dagmar Kift: The Victorian Music Hall, culture class and conflict; Cambridge,1996
  • Dave Russell; Popular Music in England 1840-1914, A social history; Manchester 1997
  • David Taylor: From Mummers to Madness: A social history of popular music in England, Huddersfield, 2021
  • Laurence Selenick; Tavern Singing in Early Victorian London: The Diaries of Charles Rice; London 1997
  • Martha Vicinus; The Industrial Muse, London, 1974

  • Kathleen Barker; Early Music Hall in Bristol, Bristol 1979
  • Judith Bowers: The story of the Britannia Music Hall (Glasgow), Edinburgh 2007
  • Frank Bruce: Scottish Show Business: Music Hall, Variety and Pantomime, National Museum of Scotland 2000
  • David John Hindle: From a gin palace to a King's palace, provincial Music Hall in Preston, 2007
  • J H Littlejohn: The Scottish Music Hall 1880 to 1990, Sutherland 1990
  • Paul Maloney: Scotland and the music Hall 1850 to 1914, Manchester 2003
  • Jim McDowell: Beyond the floodlights, a history of Belfast Music Halls and Early Theatre, Dublin 2007
  • GJ Mellor The Northern Music Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1970
  • Robert Poole; Popular Leisure and the Music Hall in 19th Century Bolton; Lancaster, 1982
  • Phillip Martin Williams and David L Williams: For your delectation and delight, a history of Music Halls and Theatres of Ashton-Under-Lynne, 2019

  • Michael Kilgarriff; Sing us one of the old songs; Oxford 1998
  • Michael Kilgarriff; Grace Beauty and banjos, London 1998
  • Christopher Pulling; They were Singing: And what they sang about; London 1952.
  • Derek Sculthorpe, The Lost World of Music Hall, Orlando, 2021
  • M Willson Disher: Victorian Song: from Dive to Drawing-Room; London, 1955

  • The Bumper Book of Music Hall Songs, Faber Publishing, 1988
  • 60 Old-Time Variety Songs, EMI Publishing, 1988
  • Diprose’s Music Hall Song Book Nos. 1-9, London, ca. 1859-1862, republished as part of the British Library Historical Collection: The comic and sentimental Music Hall Song Book, London, nd
  • Harry Linn’s Fireside Songbook (c1887), republished as part of the British Library Historical Collection:London, nd
  • Henry De Marsan’s New comic and sentimental singer’s journal. Vol 1-60 (1863-1870/71), Vol 61-200 (1870/71-82), later volumes at Library of Congress.
  • Music Hall Songster London: W.S. Fortey, 1892, republished as part of the British Library Historical Collection
  • Roy Palmer: What A Lovely War: British soldier songs from the Boer War to the present day, London, 1990
  • Michael R Turner and Anthony Miall: The Parlour Song Book: a casket of vocal gems; London, 1972
  • Michael R Turner and Anthony Miall: Just a song at twilight: The Second Parlour Song Book: a casket of vocal gems; London, 1972
  • Michael R Turner and Anthony Miall: The Edwardian song book: drawing-room ballads 1900 to 1914; London 1982
  • Peter Gammond; Best Music Hall and Variety Songs; London, 1972

  • David Atkinson and Steve Roud; Street Ballads in 19th-century Britain, Ireland and North America; Oxfordshire, 2016
  • James N Healy, Mercier Book of Old Irish Street Ballads, volumes 1 to 4, Cork 1967-69
  • Stan Hugill: Shanties of the Seven Seas, Mystic Seaport 2014
  • A.L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England, London
  • Jon Raven, The Urban and Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham, Wolverhampton, 1977.
  • Steve Roud and Julia Bishop Folk Song in England, London, 2017
  • Steve Roud, The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs London 2014
  • Fred and Irwin Silber, Folk singers Wordbook, New York 1973

  • Kathleen Barker, Harry Clifton, the Gentlemanly Entertainer, Nineteenth Century Theatre; Vol. 16, Iss. 2, (Winter 1988): 85.
  • Michael Diamond : Political Heroes of the Victorian Music Hall,   History Today; London (Vol. 40) 1990
  • Chris Wright (2016) Forgotten Broadsides and the Song Tradition of the Scotch Travellers in Atkinson/Roud Street Ballads.

  • Philip Furia: The poets of Tin Pan Alley : a history of America’s great lyricists (New York, 1990)
  • Thomas S Hischak: The Tin Pan Alley song encyclopedia (Westport Connecticut, 2002)
  • David A Jansen: Tin Pan Alley : the composers, the songs, the performers, and their times : the golden age of American popular music from 1886 to 1956 (New York, 1988)
  • Nicholas E Tawa: The way to Tin Pan Alley : American popular song, 1866-1910 (New York, 1990)
  • William HA Williams: Twas only an Irishman‘s Dream: The Image of Ireland nd the Irish in American Popular Song Lyrics 1800-1920 (Chicago, 1996)
  • Parker Zellers: Tony Pastor: Dean of the Vaudeville stage (Michigan, 1971)

Sites worth a visit

Thanks to:

  • Christian Reynolds, Graeme Knights, Monologue John Bartley for their endless supply of songs…
  • Singers at the Kelham Island Tavern, Gaslamp and Glossop Labour Club – for putting up with my attempts at singing some of these songs…
  • Steve Gardham and the “Artful Codger” (who he?) for all their work on Harry Clifton, JB Geoghegan, Harry Linn and other Music Hall songwriters

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Last Updated on January 24, 2022 by John Baxter | Published: December 21, 2019

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