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Percy Society

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Formal British text-publication society

The Percy Society was a British text publication society. It was founded in 1840 and collapsed in 1852.

The Society was a scholarly collective, aimed at publishing limited-edition books of rare poems and songs. The president was Lady Braybrooke, and the twelve founding members of the committee included John Payne Collier, Thomas Crofton Croker, Thomas Wright, James Orchard Halliwell (treasurer), Charles Mackay, Edward Francis Rimbault (secretary) and William Chappell. Later members included William Sandys, and Robert Bell.

The editors took care to print the text exactly as given in their sources. This was in contrast to their main inspiration, Thomas Percy, who often polished up vernacular text by adding lines or merging different incomplete versions. Like Percy, they omitted obscene songs and verses. Unlike Percy they tried to find the tunes to songs. John Payne Collier founded the Shakespeare Society in 1841.

Sources

The members of the Percy Society drew on manuscripts and printed ephemera in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, the Ashmolean Museum, the Pepys collection (Cambridge), The Douce collection (Oxford), and their own private collections. The committee would decide on the theme of the next publication, and send out the bound volumes to their subscription list. All members of the society were enthusiasts of Elizabethan drama. The society grew out of the Roxburghe Club. As well as reprinting so-called "Garlands" (collections of songs), they created their own compilations related to a particular region of Britain, or to a single subject such as Robin Hood. There were 90 small publications and 31 larger volumes called "Early English Poetry, Ballads and Popular Literature".

Legacy

In 1868 the Ballad Society was formed to do similar work, but was more focused on reprinting folksongs.

Of all the Percy Society publications, the ones that have been most frequently in print recently are the Irish folklore books by Thomas Crofton Croker. James Orchard Halliwell sold his personal collection of ballads, which became known as the Euing Collection, in the University of Glasgow. The "Crow Collection" at the University of Kent at Canterbury has an almost complete collection of Percy Society publications.

Publications

Early English Poetry, Ballads and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages

Vol. Title Year Link
1 Old Ballads from Early Printed Copies / Songs and Ballads Relative to the London Prentices / Historical Songs of Ireland / Pain and Sorrow of Evil Marriage / The King and a Poor Northern Man 1840
2 A selection from the minor poems of Lydgate / Early naval ballads of England / A search for money, by William Rowley / The mad pranks and merry jests of Robin Goodfellow 1840
3 Political Ballads published in England during the Commonwealth / Strange Histories by Thomas Deloney / A Marriage Triumph by Thomas Heywood / The History of Patient Grissel 1841
4 Specimins of Lyric Poetry, Temp. Edw. I. / The Boke of Curtasye / Specimins of Old Christmas Carols / The Nursery Rhymes of England 1841
5 Kind-heart's Dream, by Henry Chettle, 1592 / A Knight's Conjuring by Thomas Dekker / The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinaire, 1604 / The Two Agnry Women of Abingdon, by H. Porter, 1599 1841
6 Ancient Poetical Tracts of the Sixteenth Century / Cock Lorell's Bote / The Crown Garland of Golden Roses / Follie's Anatomie, by Henry Hutton, 1619 / Poems by Sir Henry Wotton 1842
7 The Harmony of Birds/ A Paraphrase of the Seven Penitential Psalms, in English Verse / The Harmony of the Church, by Michael Drayton, 1591 / Jack of Dover, 1604, A Kerry Pastoral 1842
8 A Selection of Latin Stories / A Dialogue of Witches and Witchcraft by George Gifford 1843
9 The Four Knaves, by Samuel Rowlands / A Poem to the Memory of William Congreve, by James Thomson / The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson, The Merry Londoner / Maroccus Extaticus: Or Bankes Bay Horse in a Trance, 1597 / Old Ballads illustrating the Great Frost of 1683-4 1844
10 Lord Mayor's Pageants: Parts I. and II. 1844
11 The Owl and the Nightingale / Thirteen Psalms and the First Chapter of Ecclesiastes, Versified by John Croke / An Historical Expostulation, etc. by John Hall, 1565 / The Honestie of the Age by Barnaby Rich, 1611 1844
12 Reynard the Fox, from Caxton's Edition 1844
13 The Keen of the South of Ireland / Six Ballads, with Burdens / Lyrical Poems, Selected from Musical Publications Between 1589 and 1600 1844
14 The Poems of John Audelay / St. Brandan, A Legend of the Sea / The Romance of the Emperor Octavian 1844
15 Friar Bakon's Prophesie / Poetical Miscellanies / The Crown Garland of Golden Roses, Part II 1845
16 The Seven Sages, with an Introductory Essay / The Romance of Sir Tryamoure 1846
17 Scottish traditional versions of ancient ballads / Ancient poems, ballads and songs 1846
18 The Passetyme of Pleasure by Stephen Hawes 1846
19 The Civic Garland / Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Becket 1846
20 Barnfield's Affectionate Shepherd / Dialogue on Wit and Folly / Proverbs and Popular Sayings / Song of Lady Bessy 1847
21 Popular songs, illustrative of the French invasions of Ireland in Four Parts 1847
22 The Cytezen and Uplondyshman / An Interlude of the Four Elements / Interlude of the Disobedient Child / The Autobiography of Mary Countess of Warwick / Westward from Smelts 1848
23 Songs and Carols of the Fifteenth Century / Festive Songs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries / Popular English Histories 1848
24 The Canterbury Tales Part I 1847
25 The Canterbury Tales Part II 1847
26 The Canterbury Tales Part III 1851
27 Beleeve as You List / Satirical Songs and Poems on Costume 1849
28 An Anglo-Saxon passion of Saint George / A poem on the times of Edward II. / The Poems of William de Shoreham / The triall of treasure 1851
29 Notices of fugitive tracts and chap-books / The man in the Moone / The use of dice-play / The loyal garland / Poems and songs on the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham 1851
30 The Garland of Good-Will / Britannia's Pastorals: A Third Book / John Bon and Mast Person; A Dialogue in Verse 1852

References

  1. Lowndes, William Thomas; Bohn, Henry George (1865). "Percy Society publications". Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature. Vol. 6. pp. 59–65.
  2. Historical Dictionary of English Music ca. 1400–1958 ed. by Charles Edward McGuire, Steven E. Plank (2012), p. 235
  3. "Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages" – via Internet Archive.
  4. Society, Percy (4 December 1846). "Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages". Percy Society – via Google Books.
  5. Society, Percy (4 December 1847). "Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages: Popular songs, illustrative of the French invasions of Ireland". Percy Society – via Google Books.
  6. Chaucer, Geoffrey (4 December 1847). "The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer: A New Text with Illustrative Notes". Percy Society – via Google Books.
  7. Society, Percy (4 December 1848). "Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages: The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer". Percy Society – via Google Books.
  8. "Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages". Printed for the Percy society by C. Richards. 4 December 1851 – via Internet Archive.
  9. Society, Percy (4 December 1851). "Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages: Notices of fugitive tracts, and chap-books". Percy Society – via Google Books.

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