Historic Bibliographies and Reference Aids

Bibliography on the Ballad

Compiled by: Joseph C. Hickerson
Publication Date: October 6, 1975

Abrahams, Roger D.
"Patterns of Structure and Role Relationships in the Child Ballads in the United Sates." Journal of American Folklore, volume 79, number 313, July-September 1966, pp. 448-462.

Abrahams, Roger D. and George Foss.
Anglo-American Folksong Style. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968.

Barry, Phillips, Fannie Hardy Eckstrom and Mary Winslow Smyth.
British Ballads from Maine: The Development of Popular Songs with Texts and Airs. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929.

Bayard, Samuel P.
"Ballad Tunes and the Hustvedt Indexing Method." Journal of American Folklore, volume 55, number 218, October-December 1942, pp. 248-254.

"Prolegomena to a Study of the Principal Melodic Families to British-American Folk Song." Journal of American Folklore, volume 62, number 247, January-March 1950, pp. 1-44.

Ben-Amos, Dan.
"The Situation Structure of the Non-Humorous English Ballad." Midwest Folklore, volume 13, number 3, Fall 1963, pp. 163-176.

Boswell, George W.
"Reciprocal Controls Exerted by Ballad Texts and Tunes." Journal of American Folklore, volume 80, number 316, April-June 1967, pp. 169-174.

"Shaping Controls of Ballad Tunes over Their texts," Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, volume 17, number 1, March 1951, pp. 9-18.

Brewster, Paul G.
The Two Sisters. Helsinki: Folklore Fellows Communications, volume 62, number 147, 1953.

Bronson, Bertrand H.
"About the Commonest British Ballads." Journal of International Folk Music Council, volume 9, 1957, pp. 22-27.

The Ballad as Song. Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press, 1969. [Anthology of the author's articles on the music of the ballad.]

"The Interdependence of the Ballad Tunes and Texts." California Folklore Quarterly, volume 3, number 3, July 1944, pp. 185-207.

"Mrs. Brown and the Ballad." California Folklore Quarterly, volume 4, number 1, April 1945, pp. 129-140.

"The Music of the Ballads." Virginia Quarterly Review, volume 34, number 3, 1958, pp. 474-480.

"Samuel Hall's Family Tree." California Folklore Quarterly, volume 1, number 1, January 1942, pp. 47-64.

The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads. Volumes 1-4, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959-1972.

Bryant, Frank Egbert.
"History of English Balladry through the Reign of Elizabeth." In A History of English Balladry and Other Studies, Boston: R. G. Badger, 1913, pp. 17-218. Reprint edition in book form, Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions, 1973.

Buchan, David.
The Ballad and the Folk. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.

A Scottish Ballad Book. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.

Burt, Olive Wooley.
American Murder Ballads and Their Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Child, Francis James.
"Ballad Poetry." In Johnson's New Universal Cyclopaedia. New York: A. J. Johnson, 1875, volume 1, pp. 365-368.

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Five volumes, Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1882-1898. Reprint edition, hardbound, New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1962, Reprint edition, paperbound, New York: Dover Publications, 1965.

English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Student's Cambridge Edition, edited by Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904.

Coffin, Tristram P.
The British Traditional Ballad in North America. Philadelphia: Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series, volume 2, 1950. Revised edition, 1963.

"The Folk Ballad and the Literary Ballad: An Essay in Classification." Midwest Folklore, volume 9, number 1, spring 1959, pp. 5-18. Reprinted in Folklore in Action: Essays for Discussion in Honor of MacEdward Leach, edited by Horace P. Beck, Philadelphia: Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series, volume 14, 1962 (Reprint edition, Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1972), pp. 58-70.

"'Mary Hamilton' and the Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form." Journal of American Folklore, volume 70, number 277, July-September 1957, pp. 208-214.

"Remarks Preliminary to a Study of Ballad Meter and Ballad Singing." Journal of American Folklore, volume 78, number 308, April-June 1965, pp. 149-153.

Cooney, Michael B.
"A Short Introduction to Ballads." Sing Out!, volume 19, number 3, September-October 1969, pp. 17-18.

Crawford, Thomas.
"Scottish Popular Ballads and Lyrics of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: Some Preliminary Conclusions." Studies in Scottish Literature, volume 1, number 1, July 1963, pp. 49-63.

Dal, Erik.
"Scandinavian Ballad Research Today." Scandinavica, volume 1, number 1, May 1962, pp. 5-16.

Davis, Arthur Kyle, Jr.
"'Far Fannil Town': A Ballad of Mystery Examined." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 26, number 1, March 1972, pp. 1-13.

More Traditional Ballads of Virginia: Collected with the Cooperation of Members of the Virginia Folklore Society. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960.

"Some Problems of Ballad Publication." Musical Quarterly, volume 14, number 2, April 1928, pp. 283-296.

Traditional Ballads of Virginia: Collected under the Auspices of the Virginia Folklore Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929. Reprint edition, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969.

Entwistle, William J.
European Balladry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939.

Flanders, Helen Hartness.
Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England. Volumes 1-4, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1860-1965.

Flanders, Helen Hartness and Marguerite Olney.
Ballads Migrant in New England. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953. Reprint edition, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1968.

Flügel, Ewald.
"Zur Chronologie der englishcen Balladen." Anglia, volume 21, 1899, pp. 312-358.

[no author]
"Folksong and Ballad: A Symposium." Journal of American Folklore, volume 70, number 277, July-September 1957, 205-261.

Fowler, David C.
A Literary History of the Popular Ballad. Durham: Duke University Press, 1968.

"Toward A Literary History of the Popular Ballad." New York Folklore Quarterly, volume 21, number 2, June 1965, pp. 123-141.

Friedman, Albert B.
"The Late Mediaeval Ballade and the Origin of Broadside Balladry." Medium Aevum, volume 27, number 2, 1958, pp. 95-110.

The Ballad Revival. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World. New York: The Viking Press, 1961.

Gerould, Gordon Hall.
The Ballad of Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1932. Reprint edition, 1957.

Goldstein, Kenneth S.
"The Ballad Scholar and the Long-Playing Phonograph Record." Folklore and Society: Essays in Honor of Ben A. Botkin, edited by Bruce Jackson, Hatboro, PA.: Folklore Associates, 1966, pp. 35-44.

Gordon, Philip.
"The Music of the Ballads." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 6, number 3, September 1942, pp. 143-148.

Greig, Gavin.
Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs. Edited by Alexander Keith. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Studies, number 100, 1925.

Grundtvig, Svend and Axel Olrik.
Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser. 10 volumes, Copenhagen: Samfundet tillen Danske Literaturs Fremme, 1853-1965. Reprint edition, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1966-1967.

Gummere, Francis B.
The Popular Ballad. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1907. Reprint edition, New York: Dover Publications, 1959.

Hart, Walter Morris.
Ballad and Epic: A Study in the Development of the Narrative Art. Boston: Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, volume II, 1907. Reprint edition, New York: Russell & Russell, 1967.

Henderson, Thomas F.
The Ballad in Literature. Cambridge: University Press, 1912. Reprint edition, New York: Haskell, 1969.

Hendren, Joseph W.
"The Scholar and the Ballad Singer." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 18, number 2, June 1954, pp. 139-146.

A Study of Ballad Rhythm with Special Reference to Ballad Music. Princeton Studies in English, 14, 1936. Reprint edition, New York: Gordian Press, 1966.

Hodgart, Matthew J. C.
The Ballads. London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1950. Second edition, New York: Hillary House, 1962.

Hustvedt, Sigurd Bernhard.
Ballad Books and Ballad Men: Raids and Rescues in Britain, America, and the Scandinavian North since 1800. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930. Reprint edition, New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1970.

Ballad Criticism in Scandinavia and Great Britain During the Eighteenth Century. New York: American Scandinavian Foundation 1916. (Scandinavian Monographs, volume 2). Reprint edition, Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1971.

"A Melodic Index of Child's Ballad Tunes." Publications of the University of California at Los Angeles in Languages and Literatures, volume 1, number 2, 1936, pp. 51-78.

Hyman, Stanley Edgar.
"The Child Ballad in America: Some Aesthetic Criteria." Journal of American Folklore, volume 70, number 277, July-September 1957, pp. 235-239. Reprinted with two other essays as "The Child Ballad" in The Promised End: Essays and Reviews, 1942-1962. Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Co, 1962, pp. 249-270.

James, Thelma G.
"The English and Scottish Popular Ballads of Francis J. Child." Journal of American Folklore, volume 46, number 179, January-March 1933, pp. 51-68.

Jones, James H.
"Commonplace and Memorization in the Oral Tradition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads." Journal of American Folklore, volume 74, number 292, April-June 1961, pp. 97-112.

Jonsson, Bengt R.
Svensk Balladtradition, I: Balladkällor och Balladtyper. Stockholm: Svenskt Visarkiv, 1967. (Svenskt Visarivs Handlinger, 1).

Keith, Alexander.
"Scottish Ballads: Their Evidence of Authorship and Origin." Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, volume 12, 1926, pp. 100-119.

Kinne, Frances Bartlett.
A Comparative Study of British Traditional Ballads and American Indigenous Ballads. Frankfurt am Main: Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Univ., 1957.

Kinsley, James.
The Oxford Book of Ballads. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

Krauss, Joanne.
"Love and Death and the American Ballad: A Morphology of 'Ballads of Family Opposition to Lovers'." Folklore Annual, numbers 4-5, 1972-73, pp. 91-100

Laws, G. Malcolm, Jr.
American Balladry from British Broadsides: A Guide for Students and Collectors of Traditional Song. Philadelphia: Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series, volume 8, 1957.

"Anglo-Irish Balladry in North America." In Folklore in Action: Essays for Discussion in Honor of MacEdward Leach, edited by Horace P. Beck, Philadelphia: Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series, volume 14, 1962 (Reprint edition, Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1972), pp. 172-183.

Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographical Syllabus. Philadelphia: Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series, volume 1, 1950. Revised edition, 1964.

"Stories Told in Song: The Ballads of America." In Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore, edited by Tristram P. Coffin, New York: Basic Books, 1968, pp. 83-93.

Leach, MacEdward.
"Ballad." In Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, edited by Maria Leach, New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1949 (reprinted 1972), volume 1, pp. 106-111.

The Ballad Book. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955.

"Collecting Techniques with Special Reference to Ballads." In Primera Conferencia Interamericano de Ethnomusicologia; Trabajos Presentados, Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1965, pp. 179-186.

"The Singer or the Song." In Singers and Storytellers, edited by Mody C. Boatright et al, Dallas: Publications of the Texas Folklore Society, volume 30, 1961, pp. 30-45.

Leach, MacEdward and Tristram P. Coffin, editors.
The Critics and the Ballad. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961. An anthology of articles including several in this list.

Leader, Ninon A.M.
Hungarian Classical Ballads and Their Folklore. London: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

List, George.
"An Approach to the Indexing of Ballad Tunes." Folklore and Folk Music Archivist, volume 6, number 1, Spring 1963, pp. 7-16.

"Toward the Indexing of Ballad Texts." Journal of American Folklore, volume 81, number 319, January-March 1968, pp. 44-61.

Lloyd, A.L.
Folk Song in England. London: Lawrence and Wishart; New York: International Publishers, 1967.

Long, Eleanor R.
"Ballad Singers, Ballad Makers, and Ballad Etiology." Western Folklore, volume 32, number 4, October 1973, pp. 225-236.

"Thematic Classification and 'Lady Isabel.'" Journal of American Folklore, volume 85, number 335, January-March 1972, pp. 32-41.

Lord, Albert B.
The Singer of Tales. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 24).

MacKenzie, M. L.
"The Great Ballad Collectors: Percy, Herd and Ritson." Studies on Scottish Literature, volume 2, number 4, April 1965, p. 213-233.

MacKenzie, W. Roy.
The Quest of the Ballad. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1919. Reprint edition, New York: Haskell House, 1966.

McMillan, Douglas J.
"A Survey of Theories Concerning the Oral Transmission of the Traditional Ballad." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 28, number 4, December 1964, pp. 299-309.

Mangold, Ruth Maria.
Die Motivwelt der amerikanischen Volkballade. Freiburg i, Br.: Johannes Krause, 1964.

Manifold, John Streeter.
Who Wrote the Ballads? Sydney: Australasian Book Society, 1964.

Meier, John Editor.
Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Melodien: Balladen. Volumes 1-4, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1935-1959. Vols. 5- , Freiberg/Breisgen: Verlag des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs, 1965.

Miller, E. Joan Wilson.
"The Rag-Bag World of Balladry." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 24, number 3, September 1960, pp. 217-225.

Miller, George M.
"The Dramatic Element in the Popular Ballad." University Studies of the University of Cincinnati, series 2, volume 1, number 1, 1905, pp. 3-59.

Montgomerie, William.
"A Bibliography of the Scottish Ballad Manuscripts 1730-1825." Studies in Scottish Literature, volume 4, number 1, July 1966, pp. 3-28. Beginning of seven-part series.

Moore, Arthur K.
"The Literary Status of the English Popular Ballad." Comparative Literature, volume 10, number 1, Winter 1958, pp. 1-20.

Morokoff, Gene E.
"Whole Tale Parallels of the Child Ballads as Cited or Given by Child or in FFC 74." Journal of American Folklore, volume 64, number 252, April-June 1951, pp. 203-206.

Muir, Willa.
Living With Ballads. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Niles, John Jacob.
The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961. Reprint edition, New York: Dover Publications, 1970.

Nygard, Holger Olof.
"Ballad, Folkevise, Chanson Populaire." In Folklore Studies in Honor of Arthur Palmer Hudson, edited by Daniel Patterson, Chapel Hill: North Carolina Folklore Society, 1965, pp. 39-65. Also issued as North Carolina Folklore, volume 13, numbers 1-2, 1965.

The Ballad of Heer Halewijn: Its Forms and Variations in Western Europe: A Study of the History and Nature of a Ballad Tradition. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1958; Helsinki: Folklore Fellows Communications, volume 67, number 169, 1958.

"Popular Ballad and Medieval Romance." Folklore International: Essays in Traditional Literature, Belief, and Custom in Honor of Wayland Debs Hand, edited by D. K. Wilgus, Hatboro, PA.: Folklore Associates, 1967, pp. 161-173.

Pound, Louise.
Poetic Origins and the Ballad. New York: Macmillan, 1921. Reprint edition, New York: Russell and Russell, 1962.

Selected Writings. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1949. Reprint edition, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971.

Reed, James.
The Border Ballads. Univ. of London: The Athlone Press, 1973.

Richmond, W. Edson.
"Mutatis Mutandis: A Review Article." Midwest Folklore, volume 13, number 3, Fall 1963, pp. 187-196.

"Narrative Folk Poetry." In Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, edited by Richard M. Dorson, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971, pp. 85-98.

"Romantic-Nationalism and Ballad Scholarship: A Lesson for Today from Norway's Past." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 25, number 2, June 1961, pp. 91-100.

"Some Effects of Scribal and Typographical Error in Oral Tradition." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 15, number 2, June 1951, pp. 159-170.

Roberts, Warren E.
"Comic Elements in the English Traditional Ballad." Journal of the International Folk Music Council, volume 3, 1951, pp. 76-81.

Seeger, Charles.
"Versions and Variants of the Tunes of 'Barbara Allen'." Selected Reports: Publications of the Institute of Ethnomusicology of the University of California at Los Angeles, volume 1, 1966, pp. 120-163.

Seeman, Erich. Dag Strömbäck and Bengt R. Jonnson.
European Folk Ballads. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1967. (European Folklore Series, volume 2.)

Sewell, Helen.
"Shakespeare and the Ballad." Midwest Folklore, volume 12, number 4, Winter 1962, pp. 217-234.

Shepard, Leslie.
The Broadside Ballad: A Study in Origins and Meaning. Hatboro, Penna.: Folklore Associates, 1962.

Sidgwick, Frank.
The Ballad. London: Martin Secker, 1914. Reprint edition, Folcroft, Penna.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1971.

Simpson, Claude M.
The British Broadside Ballad and its Music. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1966.

Smith, Reed.
South Carolina Ballads: With a Study of Traditional Ballad To-Day. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928. Reprint editions, Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co.; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1972.

Smith, Reed and Hilton Rufty.
American Anthology of Old-World Ballads. New York: J. Fischer, 1937.

Streenstrup, J. C. H. R.
The Medieval Popular Ballad. Translated from the Danish by Edward Godfrey Cox, Boston: Ginn & Co., 1914. Reprint edition, foreword by David C. Fowler, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1968.

Stewart, George R., Jr.
"The Meter of the Popular Ballad." Publications of the Modern Language Association, volume 40, number 4, December 1925, pp. 933-962.

Taylor, Archer.
"Edward" and "Sven i Rosengard": A study in the Dissemination of a Ballad. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931.

"Lists and Classifications of Folksongs." Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung, volume 13, 1968, pp. 1-25.

"The Parallels Between Ballads and Tales." Festschrift zur 75. Geburtstag von Erich Seeman, edited by Rolf Wilh. Brednich, Berlin: Walter de Greyfer & Co. (Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung, volume 9), 1964, pp. 104-115.

Thigpen, Kenneth A., Jr.
"An Index to the Known Oral Sources of the Child Collection." Folklore Forum, volume 5, number 2, April 1972, pp. 55-69.

"A Reconsideration of the Commonplace Phrase and Commonplace Theme in the Child Ballads." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 37, number 4, December 1973, pp. 385-408.

Thomas, Jean.
Ballad Makin' in the Mountains of Kentucky. New York: Henry Holt Co., 1939. Reprint edition, New York: Oak Publications, 1964.

Toelken, J. Barre.
"An Oral Canon for the Child Ballads: Construction and Application." Journal of the Folklore Institute, volume 4, number 1, July 1967, pp. 75-101.

Turner, Judith W.
"A Morphology of the 'True Love' Ballad." Journal of American Folklore, volume 85, number 335, January-March 1972, pp. 21-23.

Vargyas, Lajos.
Researches into Medieval History of Folk Ballads. Translated by Arthur H. Whitney. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1967.

Wells, Evelyn Kendrick.
The Ballad Tree. New York: Ronald Press, 1950.

Welsh, Charles and William H. Tillinghast.
Catalogue of English and American Chapbooks and Broadside Ballads in Harvard College Library. Cambridge: Library of Harvard University, 1905. Reprint edition, introductory note by Leslie Shepard, Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1968.

White, Newman Ivey, General Editor.
The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. Seven volumes, Durham: Duke University Press, 1952-1964.
Volume 2, Folk Ballads, edited by Henry M. Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson, 1952.
Volume 4, The Music of the Ballads, edited by Jan P. Shinhan, 1957.

Whiting, Bartlett Jere.
Traditional British Ballads. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955.

Wilgus, D. K.
Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship Since 1898. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1959.

"Ballad Classification." Midwest Folklore, volume 5, number 2, Summer 1955, pp. 95-100.

"A Type-Index of Anglo-American Traditional Narrative Songs." Journal of the Folklore Institute, volume 7, number 2-3, August-December 1970, pp. 161-176.

Willinsky, Margarete.
Bischof Percy's Bearbeitung der Volksballaden und Kunstgedichte seines Folio-Manuskriptes. Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1932. (Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie, Heft 22.) Reprint edition, New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1967.

Wimberly, Lowry C.
Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928. Reprint editions, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1959; New York: Dover Publications, 1965.

Winkelman, Donald M.
"Musicological Techniques of Ballad Analysis." Midwest Folklore, volume 10, number 4, Winter 1960-1961, pp. 197-205.

"Poetic/Rhythmic Stress in the Child Ballads." Keystone Folklore Quarterly, volume 12, number 2, Summer 1967, pp. 103-117.

"Some Rhythmic Aspects of the Child Ballad." In New Voices in American Studies, edited by Ray B. Browne, Donald M. Winkelman and Allan Hayman, Lafayette: Purdue University Studies, 1966, pp. 151-162.