Monday, May 21, 2012

Here is the news

A fantastic collection of Broadside Ballads, 2,300 of them, which were the equivalent of TV and radio news programmes in the 19th century. Sung or raed on street corners, in markets and yards they were the way that the poor and working folks heard about the news of the day. I could, and probably will, spend endless hours rifling through these. Some worth checking out...
The Earthquake Did Not Arrive
The Happy Couple
The Extraordinary Life and Death of Mary Anne Pierce
Oh, and there are lots more of them. Welsh ballads can be found here and the Bodleian's collection can be found here. There's fricking thousands of them. A good list of links to get at them all can be found here.

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