[BROADSIDE BALLAD]; PIRATE'S BRIDE.

HARKNESS, John (printer):

Verlag: Preston: John Harkness., 1841

Beschreibung

Broadside ballad on thin paper with wood-engraved headpiece depicting the pirate's bride. 95 x 255mm. There is a small chip to the blank bottom-left corner, a minor hole to the blank upper margin, a faint spot of toning to the left-hand side at the centre, and a little light creasing to the top-left corner, otherwise condition is very good. A nice example of a scarce, delicate, ephemeral production. A ballad forming the parting song of a pirate as he leaves his bride for the "Isle Hydra". As the text indicates, the pirate is a "corsair" en route to the Greek island of Hydra, implying that he is perhaps a Barbary pirate. These "Barbary corsairs", many of whom were Muslim, operated from the North African coast, predominantly seeking to capture slaves (of many ethnicities and religions) for the Barbary slave trade. The ballad also mentions the corsair's "blood red flag", a nautical sign used by pirates to indicate that "no quarter would be given" to their target if they refused to surrender their cargo. John Harkness was one of Britain's most successful and prolific printers of popular broadsides during the nineteenth century. Based in Preston, his printings were sent all over the country by train, with street singers and hawkers in London collecting his songs from Euston station. As J. H. Spencer (who was responsible for compiling the present Harkness Ballad Collection held in the Harris Library, Preston) describes, "The subjects of these broadsides. were of a sensational nature, comprising ballads, abbreviated histories, comic tales, political litanies, dialogues, murders, elopements, love tragedies, robberies, shipwrecks, pirates, dying speeches and confessions, in fact any mortal thing of a gruesome or exciting nature". Beyond the example in the Harris Library, we can trace no other institutional example of present ballad worldwide. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 1248

Bibliografische Details

Titel: [BROADSIDE BALLAD]; PIRATE'S BRIDE.

Verlag: Preston: John Harkness.

Erscheinungsdatum: 1841