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The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141194622

  • Length: 608  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 26mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 415g

  • RRP: £9.99

The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs

The definitive collection of folk music - one of the great English popular art forms

One of the great English popular art forms, the folk song can be painful, satirical, erotic, dramatic, rueful or funny. This magical new collection brings together all the classic folk songs as well as many lesser-known discoveries, complete with music and annotations on their original sources and meaning. Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, it is a worthy successor to Ralph Vaughan Williams and A. L. Lloyd's original Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141194622

  • Length: 608  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 26mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 415g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • Refreshing ... beautiful ... academic but lively ... the book offers the experience of immersion into the strange, romantic and occasionally frightening world these songs were, and are, a part of ... A triumphant addition to the English folk canon, both as a source of reference and as an endlessly enjoyable collection to dip into

    The Times

  • The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs couldn't be better timed ... an utterly indispensable collection of music for murder, wooing and wanton abandon

    Record Collector

  • Compelling ... fascinating and refreshingly objective ... Free of any cloying romanticism ... An impressive and nourishing book, with an appeal far beyond the folk aficionado. Roud and Bishop have created something vital

    Telegraph

  • A wonderful resource of knowledge and scholarship

    Tim Cumming, Independent

More from this Author

About the Author

Julia Bishop

Steve Roud is the Founder of the Roud Folk Song Index and the author of a number of major works on English folkways and customs, including The English Year. Julia Bishop has a PhD in folksong and is Chief Editor of the forthcoming edition of the James Madison Carpenter Folksong Collection.

Julia Bishop

Steve Roud

Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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