How rare is it to find a MS written by Sharp? I have a copy of Sharp's English Folk Carols presented to a Peggie Walsh by Sharp at Christmas 1911. What I'd never noticed till yesterday is that there is a sheet of MS pasted into the front of the book with the first verse of The Holy Well on it, with piano arrangement. On closer inspection I thought the handwriting in the MS was very similar to the inscription; looking up the version collected by Sharp from Sydney Veale in The Full English collection on line confirms that the hand and notation style are identical. My guess is that Peggie Walsh (who I'm informed was part of the Kennedy/Sharp set at EFDSS) received the book from Sharp (and seems to have used it actively, as there are notes throughout), and later asked him to note down the version of The Holy Well that he collected from Sydney Veale in 1913, and pasted this into her carols book.

Is there much of this stuff floating around privately? I've no intention of parting with it, but I'm just trying to determine how rare it is.

It was a very exciting thing to find (and to realise was sitting unnoticed on my bookshelf for several years!).