Auctioning 1st Edition Child's Ballads

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Hollowfox
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 12:51 PM

All right, bookaholics, all together now..."(whimper)".

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 08:56 AM

Sandy - "Riverside Press?!" Not "R_nich Profs?" Oh well. I think the "?" above is "the."

My mom got interested in genealogy, and took over what had already been done for her side of the family. The existing research was done because someone in the family was trying to get into the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). My mom got into it because of the history - the stories of who our ancestors were. One of them was Old Henry Francisco, born around 1686, fought in the Revolution (at 91 years old) and died when he was 120+ years old. (Then information I have says 134.) The results of her research fill up a 4-drawer file cabinet in the basement. One of these days...

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 01:09 AM

Yep, that's it exactly, Sandy. Except I don't think I have any "interesting" relatives except U.S. Grant......

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 01:07 AM

Sorcha: A relative of mine is going to be coming by soon to borrow the genealogy data my father assembled as a sort of a hobby after he retired. (He always said it was like collecting stamps.) I thought, "How nice to know that someone in the family is so interested in the family history that he will take time out on this rare trip from his home in Alaska to look into this tedious material." Well, it turns out he is really primarily interested in authenticating an old revolver from the Civil War that has wound up in his hands.

I'd rather try to learn if we are related to the Elizabeth Paton who bore Rabbie Burns' first illegitimate child! Now I could get excited about that! Different strokes, I guess.

Sandy

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 12:45 AM

No, Bruce. The set on EBay is not the Carnegie set. That one is listed through Bookfinder.com and is a specially leather bound and decorated set offered by Urdus Books. I think they are asking something like $5775 (or thereabouts) for that one. The EBay one is the same edition as mine, except that it isn't falling apart, as mine is! Mine is #862 of the 1000 printed.

Let's face it, folks, the four Bronson volumes are much more valuable for people who want to SING the bloody ballads. The handful of tunes in Child's (Kittredge's?) addenda are not of much use.

Sandy

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 12:35 AM

Oh, Sandy..........isn't it sort of awful sometimes to find out what things are "worth"? We have several things that I inherited from my parents that I honestly don't care about as "things"--guns, jewlery, etc. that I have found out are worth a LOT of money, but even tho I don't care about collecting guns, jewlery, etc. I don't feel free to sell them because they were Moms' things.....

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 12:30 AM

My ten-volume set is currently in New York being scanned. I'll keep you posted. No Andy Carnegie bindings on mine, I assure you! In fact, the old leather bindings are almost totally separated from the spines. In the first volume was a hand-written letter from Child that reads (to the best of a concerted effort to make out all of the elegantly scrawled words):

F. J. Child
Oct. 5, 1893

The Riverside Press

I send, according to instructions from Messrs Houghton, Mifflin -?-
copy for part 9 of English & Scottish Ballads (Nos 200-276).
I have no transcript of this and could not
replace it, & will therefore beg that it may
be kept safe.

Faithfully,

F. J. Child


We now keep this gem in our personal strong box. I had overlooked it for years, since the condition of the bindings of this ten volume set was such that I preferred to use the five volumes of the Folklore Press edition (bound in three). I once took a couple of the worst of the ten volumes to a bindery to ask how much it would cost to repair them. They suggested simply giving up on the old bindings as trying to salvage them would be quite expensive. "So," I asked, how much to simply rebind them?" "$100 per volume." That was their less-expensive suggestion! And that's why all ten volumes have been living for many years in a box on a top shelf in our library/guest room. Yikes!

Sandy (wondering what Carnegie would have done)

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 04:36 PM

That in the earlier British Poets series is not 'the' Child ballads.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 04:26 PM

I have the Child collection from the "British Poets" series, 8 vols.in 4, Houghton, Osgood and Company..The Riverside Press, Cambridge ..Boston, 1878

(note...this, and I assume, the one being auctioned are NOT the edited & enlarged one published later by Dover...we are talking the un-edited collection with very few notes and introductions which F.J. Child published very early. It has ballads later removed as not worthy, or replaced with better versions...etc...)..I do not know the exact history of Child's editing and culling process, so I am not sure exactly where my edition stands in the various printings, nor yet what it might be worth. Perhaps Bruce or others can help clarify the relationship of the various printings.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:57 PM

That set is priced for book collectors, not students of folk songs. There are at least 3 reprints of the complete Child. I have a songbook with music of 1749, nice book but lousy songs. Worth something maybe to a book collector, bu not to anyone else.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Morticia
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:51 PM

I know Bruce, but it isn't quite the same as holding a real live book in your hands, is it?Great story Wes :)

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:36 PM

Donate your pennies to Mudcat instead. Dick Greenhaus has long range plans to get Child complete on CDs.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:11 PM

Morticia - "where The Wild Things Are" is on the list of books to buy. While I'm at it I'll tell you how good of a bedtime storyteller I am. Bretta was holding Brendan the other night as I read from the original Winnie the Pooh stories. Half way through the story I looked over and saw that Brendans eyes were as big as saucers. Bretta however was fast asleep. I wish the camera had been handy.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Naemanson
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:11 PM

I think I'll wait for the paperback edition. That should be out any day, shouldn't it?

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: MMario
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:05 PM

hee-hee! another brenden report!

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Morticia
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:54 PM

Have you read him "Where the Wild Things are" yet, Wes? That was always my kids favourite book.Had to go buy Fiona a new copy this Christmas because her's fell apart....the fact that she's now 19 is irrelevant apparently.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:49 PM

The seller is in PA, Mario. And you'll be in PA this weekend...

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:49 PM

Brendans favorite books currently are "Good Night Moon" and "Old Turtle". He would most likely gum this Child Ballad book to death. But I'll ask him tonight.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Morticia
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:46 PM

Dammit....okay, you choose, which one?

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: MMario
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:45 PM

to heck with buying it - someone steal it long enough to scan it all. it's out of copyright!

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:45 PM

Wesley - Brendan can have Page One if he wants. And Morty - i trust Skarpi but I thought we were going in on a pub????

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:40 PM

Mary - I could say it's because men come first - but I'm too much of a sensitive new age guy to do that. You can have any page you want. I just wanted to get the ball rolling so to speak.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Morticia
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:32 PM

Gosh but I'd like to own this....Sins, if we go halvies, it would spend it's life going back and forth between the UK and the States....we'd have to keep it at a midway point....Iceland maybe? How about it Skarpi, wanna book sit for us?

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:26 PM

But I want Page 632! And how come you get the first page????
Mary for whom sharing toys was an alien concept even in early childhood and certainly now in late CHILDhood.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:24 PM

OK - Here's how we do it. I'll buy the first page, Sinsull buys the second, Sorcha buys the third................

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:17 PM

Sorcha - you can store it at my house. I'll spill Pepsi instead.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:16 PM

Sandy Paton noted on another newsgroup that the set noted in the 1st post above had belonged to Andrew Carnegie.

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:11 PM

WOOOOOOW! I want a copy of Child, but I'll just spill beer on it, so I don't think I need that one!

Subject: RE: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 02:10 PM

Wow.

Actually I have the 1-volume, 1915 edition. It's way cool. I think before I got the multivolume original I'd want to buy those books of tunes for the ballads. But it sure would look pretty on the bookshelf, no doubt about that.

Alex

Subject: AUCTIONING 1ST ED. CHILD'S BALLADS
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:51 PM

Any takers? Anyone interested in a joint purchase? Anyone interested in loaning me a few thousand?
click here