Help: Folklore Compilations

Subject: Folklore Compilations
From: GUEST,Mark P.
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 06:03 PM

Can anyone out there recommend a good collection of American folk tales / folklore?

I know there are a lot of books on this topic, but many seem geared to children or are very specific in their selections.

I'd like to find a nice collection of American folk tales and/or folklore, hopefully a nice thick volume.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Help: Folklore Compilations
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 06:15 PM

I know there are a lot of books on this topic, but many seem geared to children or are very specific in their selections

So what do you actually want?

It's a little hard to advise, especially given that your main consideration appears to be "a thick book"

Subject: RE: Help: Folklore Compilations
From: Nerd
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 09:40 PM

B.A. Botkin put out many "treasuries" of American folklore, each with a theme. Horace Beck edited a nice collection for reader's digest called "American Folklore and Legend." On the other hand, Frank Brown put out a seven-volume academic collection just from North Carolina. Depends what you want, really...

Subject: RE: Help: Folklore Compilations
From: Mudlark
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 10:43 PM

Vance Randolph has put out a great collection of Ozark folk tales...not exactly a thick tome, but lots of good stories.

Subject: RE: Help: Folklore Compilations
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 11:41 PM

I am a bibliophile - I love books and especially American Humor.

The book you desire depends upon your needs:

(I've just finished reading a fun 10 volumn set of American Humor published 1907)

My best advice, is to go to a store for used books and browse, and browse and browse - There are dozens of collections of American folk humor/lore. Before you fork over 60 to 120 dollars, browse your local university library.

Try these: The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore

Another suggestion is something you DO NOT give to a kid - THE ANTHOLOGY OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE - 1100+ pages.... My copy is 1947 and is noteworthy because of the addition of its new section, "Folklore That Has Inspired Good Music." There have been six or seven other edtions, the older are better for folklore.

Collected by high school students - THE FOXFIRE SERIES - for a modern collection of Appalacian Folk Tales and Crafts (older 1970's are better)

The WPA Writer's Project Books from the 1930's - Collections By State and genre

The four volumne Vance Randolph series gives you folksongs and a lot of lore to go with them.

For a good "on-line" resource you cannot beat the Library of Congress collection of American Folk Lore at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/other.html

WORK HARD, HAVE FUN, LAUGH A LOT

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Help: Folklore Compilations
From: masato sakurai
Date: 08 Sep 02 - 12:21 AM

Some additions:

Tristram Potter Coffin and Henning Cohen, The Parade of Heroes: Legendary Figures in American Lore (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978, 630 pp.) ["a collection of songs and ballads, tales and anecdotes, rhymes and sayings about folk heroes known and obscure"]

Duncan Emrich, Folklore on the American Land (Little, Brown, 1972, 707 pp.) ["contains chapters on everything from children's rhymes to epitaphs, including folk beliefs and superstitions, proverbs, legends, tales, folk language, songs and ballads, sections on the folklore of birth, marriage, and death, and much more"]

Richard M. Dorson, Buying the Wind: Regional Folkore in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 1964, 574 pp.) ["The collection explores rich and distinctive lore of Maine Down-Easters, Pennsylvania Dutchmen, Southern mountaineers, Louisiana Cajuns, Illinois Egyptians, Southwest Mexicans, and Utah Mormons."]

Roger D. Abrahams, Afro-American Folktales (Pantheon, 1985, pp. 327) ["These 107 tales come from the canefields of the antebellum South, the villages of Caribbean islands, and the streets of centemporary Philadelphia."]

~Masato