John

There's plenty of stuff on Jefferson's library collection online. It appears (see this pdf: Scottish Enlightenment influence on Thomas Jefferson's book-buying) that 4 catalogues are available.


See also this: Jefferson and Reading.

The Thomas Jefferson archive has a copy of one of his catalogue's avaiable, and of particular interest is this page: Page 192 in Vocal sections.

This shows the following entries:

Drinking Songs 2 books
Curtis's Jessamine
Bach's Songs 2nd collection
Heron's song books 4th and 5th
Favourite songs published by Bremner
Dibden's Songs 8vo
book of songs 8vo
book of songs folio


Sadly few details on contents of the book of songs collections.


Pages 190+ is the music section. Page 196 includes:

Thumoth's English, Scotch & Irish airs
Thumoth's Scotch & Irish airs
Pocket companion for the German flute 8vo


all of which probably contained some well-known tunes.


It's probably worth pursuing, but I haven't time at the moment.

Also Jefferson's library may be more learned (there are books on music theory and classical compositions). You may need to look for more evidence of more popular books.



Mick