"Sharp, of course, did his own editing and bowdlerising"
This is true of all the collectors of the time, who were hampered by Victorian convention; but even taking this into consideration, and the fact that some collectors kept copies of originals, I think we were left with enough of a picture to work on.
Later collectors who were not bound by such restrictions have added to the original store (I seem to remember reading that J M Carpenter collected a number of obscene shanties, for instance).
Jim Carroll