G'day Fay,

I have a copy of Bawdy Songs of the Early Music Hall, Selected and Introduced by George Speaight, David & Charles (Holdings) Limited, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1975.

This is a (selected ... ?) facsimile from what Speaight describes as:

" ...A fortunate discovery .. made at the British Museum during my research into the English toy theatre, ... a cache of slim booklets published by the the theatrical printseller, William West, at 57 Wych Street, Strand ... titles such as The Randy Songster or b>The Cuckold's Nest of Choice, Flash, Smutty and Delicious Songs and record the songs sung at the Coal Hole,, the Cider Cellars, Offley's and, no doubt, similar establishments. As far as I am aware, they have never been reprinted, and, indeed their existence was practically unknown and unrecorded, apart from an entry in Ashbee's bibliography of pornagraphic books and an innacurate reference in Ivan Bloch's Sexual Life in England of 1901. (Excerpt from Speaigh's 9-page Introduction)

I have found the book to be illuminating background to my principal area of interest in early Australian song history ... but it clearly relates closely to your quest. The songs are all definitely in the sub rosa category ... by selection ... but they may help you. I presume you can track down a copy in some library ... if only the required deposit copies in the major British libraries.

If you need any more preliminary information, I can OCR scan in the Contents, Introduction and Notes ... and send a text file to a personal e-mail address, if you wish to PM such to me.

The book appears to comprise direct facsimiles of words & music of some 35 songs ... and Speaight says: "... from internal evidence it would appear that he embarked upon the publication of these booklets in the mid-1830s, probably after he ceased issuing new toy theatre plays. I afraid he may have found them more profitable!" (also from Introduction).

Regards,

Bob Bolton