Item #16794 Real Sailor-Songs. Two hundred illustrations. John Ashton, compiler.
Real Sailor-Songs. Two hundred illustrations.

Real Sailor-Songs. Two hundred illustrations.

London: Leadenhall Press, 1891. First edition. With 32 facsimiles of nautical song broadsides mounted on brown paper stubs. With a total of 200 half-page illustrations, initials, headpieces, and tailpieces (some by Joseph Crawhall). Some yellowing to vellum, as usual. Some wear to seam where vellum meets paper on front board. Front hinge somewhat tender. Some rubbing to extremities. Edges untrimmed. Some toning to endpapers and some occasional toning to leaves from brown paper stubs. Twentieth century bookplate (Ex Libris Oliver Collection) to front pastedown. Overall a very good, clean copy of this lively and ambitious Leadenhall Press production. Half vellum over blue paper boards, gilt spine, gilt coat-of-arms on front cover. Covers stamped in black and red. 8], [98], [2, ads] ff. Item #16794

The present work collects almost 130 sea shanties and other songs written by sailors from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The songs are organized into sections according to relevant themes in the nautical life: sea fights, press gangs, disasters, life ashore, and love. The miscellaneous section at the end of the book covers everything from “Davy Jones’s Locker” and “The Downfall of Piracy” to “The Female Smuggler” to “The Sailor’s Widow’s Lament.”.

Price: $500.00

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