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First edition of this wonderful compendium of juvenile songs in honour of the tradition English Twelfth Night iced plum cake, with each song sung by a different character, including King, Queen, Harlequin and Punch. The title vignette is typically immense, decorated with ribbons and swags and miniature figures of the characters, laid on a table ready to be cut. Though undated The Twelfth Cake was reviewed in the January Monthly Magazine of 1798, so was probably issued before Christmas, i.e. in 1797.

‘Although his earliest publications were of solo songs, Spofforth’s importance as a composer is based on the numerous glees (about seventy-five in number) that he published from 1796, many of which also appeared in anthologies.... Spofforth composed many songs and duets and left three books of nursery-rhyme settings, but no instrumental or sacred music.

Spofforth was chorus master at Covent Garden for a time, and wrote various songs and glees for productions there, but turned down an invitation to succeed William Shield as musical director in 1797. He also served as organist at Fitzroy Chapel and later at Eltham parish church, and was active as a teacher’ (Oxford DNB). Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, II, 661-2 (suggesting c. 1800 as the date of publication). Worldcat lists copies at BL (erroneously dated 1807), Cambridge (erroneously dated 1778-1787, which is unlikely), Yale, Alexander Turnbull Library (NZ), Toronto (the Osborne copy), Princeton

A splendid piece of twentieth-century Medievalism, with miniaturist Lucy Boucher’s brilliant hand-finished colour plates inspired by tapestries and stained glass. Le Jeu de Robin et Marion is usually considered the earliest French secular play with music, written in around 1282 or 1283 — a dramatisation of a traditional genre of medieval French song, the pastourelle. The pastourelle typically tells of an encounter between a knight and a shepherdess, but Adam de la Halle’s version of the story places a greater emphasis on the activities of Marion, her lover Robin and their friends after she resists the knight’s advances.

One of 380 copies, this one of 246 ‘regular’ copies after copies with original drawings etc. Worldcat lists a single copy (University of Antwerp).

Popular music in the reign of Louis XIV. A rare yearly part of the Livres d’Airs de differents autheurs, published annually between 1658 and 1694 and containing the most popular airs of the year, circulated otherwise either orally or in fugitive form (manuscript or print). Most of the songs are in two or three parts arranged across a double-page opening. RISM Recueils, p. 560, 1679 3; Goulet, Poésie, musique et sociabilité au XVIIe siècle. Les livres d’airs de différents auteurs publiés chez Ballard de 1658 à 1694, Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004.

A very neat collection of popular songs, most from the 1850s, of the sort circulated in ephemeral printed and manuscript song sheets. Highlights include: Est-ce le hatchich qui t’a mis comme ça: an uncommon reference to hashish in this context, and a song (in common with several others in the manuscript) for which we can find no printed source. Sung to the tune of ‘Aÿ chiquita’, this is a woman’s complaint to her suitor, with the chorus:

‘Est-ce l’absinthe, ou bien encore,
Le hatchich qui t’as mis, dis-moi,
Dans cet état que j’aborre,
Et tu veux m’aimer! Ah! Tais-toi.’

This is hardly Baudelaire, but a pleasing contemporary parallel to Les Paradis artificiels.

Others include Les Cris de Paris, Les Chemins de fer and Les Anges de la charité ou les inondés de 1856 and there are songs attributable to Pierre Dupont and Charles Durand, both popular in the 1850s and 60s. Some are in dialect and typically, the subjects tend towards love, drink and gastronomy, but there are also a couple alluding to the language of flowers. The compilation is scrupulously neat—and is presumably, in part, an exercise in penmanship.

An illustrated chansonnier, highly decorated, and including songs such as: Souvenir de ‘70, Les Femmes soldats, Le Baiser, l’Anglaise, Le Testament du Libre-Penseur, Marche du Bataillon d’Afrique, L’Africaine, Départ pour Madagascar, La Pucelle de Bellville, Les Prisonniers morts pour la liberté.

These notebooks are a fascinating example of a popular method of collecting popular French cabaret songs, all neatly copied up with headings and illustrations (usually suitably suggestive) copied from contemporary song sheets (an example of one of these loose sheets is loosely inserted). We have seen several similar examples, in which the illustrations are apparently traced using carbon paper from printed (or other manuscripts) exemplars. Their context is usually military or naval and they represent a significant form of popular or naive art.

The decorative title, with elaborate borders describes Arbez Carme as ‘employé au Magasin des Vivres de Réserve du 23me Reg[im]ent d’Inf[anter]ie a Bourg, Ain’. Military records record his birth in 1876 in Jura, his occupation as a perruquier (wigmaker) and his recruitment in 1896.

An interesting example of French provincial lithography used for the cover of this patriotic song composed by a Toulouse lawyer at the accession of Charles X.

I. 'J.B'. France, c. 1900.

Folio (335 × 210 mm), pp. [98], plus several blank leaves at end. Text in manuscript, full-page illustrations in crayon or pastel. Lightly browned throughout, fragile at edges with minor fraying, all the result of poor quality paper. In original cloth backed notebook. Binding rather worn. A handsome chanson manuscript, anonymous but for the decorative initials 'J.B'. The songs include: 'Le Pigeon blessé', 'Sous les Platanes', 'Carmen', 'Chagrins d'Amour', 'Juanita', 'La Femme est un jouette' and 'Mort pour la France'.

II. Émile LEBLOND. Dijon, c. 1904.

Manuscript, 4to (214 × 170 mm), pp. 1-12, 17-98, 101-102, 105-270, 280-320, several blanks at rear. Evidence of 3 leaves removed, perhaps by the maker. Numerous drawings in ink and crayon, decorative headings. Original cloth notebook. Rather rubbed. An illustrated chansonnier made by a soldier of the First Artillery, stationed at Dijon. This is an especially full example which gives some unusual details as to its making: Leblond occasionally records the number of weeks he has been in service and there is evidence of carbon tracing, demonstrating the use of illustrations from popular journals in making these chansonniers. The songs include: 'Berceuse militaire', 'L'Africaine', 'Chapeai bas devant la Marseillais', 'Vous êtes si jolie', 'Four frou' and 'Ma Ninette'.

III. Yvan LOREAU. Chemillé-sur-Seine, c. 1909.

Manuscript, small 4to (216 × 175 mm), pp. [2], 88, ruled paper. Drawings in ink and crayon. Original limp wrappers. Yvan Loreau writes on his title-page that this manuscript was made 'Sur le tour de France' and begun on 11th December 1909. Songs include: 'Voila la Parisienne', 'Le petit coeur de Ninon', 'Ah! Ma p'tit Lili', 'Le ruban bleu de l'hirondelle' and 'Pas sur la bouche'.

IV. Alexandre MOULLET, 'le gros bâtarde'. Valence, 1913-14.

Manuscript (on squared paper), 4to (222 × 170 mm), pp. [152]. Drawings in ink and crayon, partially unfinished. Some thumbing and fraying, one leaf loose. Original half cloth notebook. An illustrated chansonnier made on the eve of the Great War for one Alexandre Moullet, picturesquely nicknamed 'le gros bâtarde', of the 5eme Régiment d'Artillerie lourde, 8ème batterie, at Valence (Drôme). Songs include: 'Les petites Toulonnaises'; 'Soldat vierge', 'Marins de Marseille', 'Coeur Crise', 'Sur la Riviera' and 'Le dernier Tango'.

V. REDON. Valbonne (Ain), 1921.

Manuscript on paper, small 4to (216 × 170 mm), pp. [117], plus numerous blanks at rear, numerous drawings in pencil, ink and crayon (a couple cut from newspapers or journals, decorative headings. Original half cloth notebook. Songs include: 'Tu voudrais me voir pleurer', 'La vals du pastis', 'Vous rendez tous les hommes fou' and 'Le train fatale'. One verse is subscribed 'Fait a la Valbonne le 12-12-21 une soiré de grand froid'.

1. NORDENDORF, C.C. de. Attack Step Quickstep. Danville (Va.): Mrs E. L. Nordendorf, [1865]. Not found in OCLC.

2. SCHILLING, Fred[erick]. Brothers hasten on to Battle. Brooklyn: D.S. Holmes, [1864]. OCLC: Lincoln Presidential Library only.

3. DOANE, Howard. Bury me in the Valley. Cincinnati: John Church, [n.d.]. OCLC: Ohio State University only [possibly another edition].

4. MCNAUGHTON, J.H. The faded Coat of Blue or the nameless Grave. Ballad. Buffalo, Penn & Remington, [1865]. Stain to lower margins. OCLC: UC Santa Barbara and Library Company of Philadelphia.

5. CLARK, James C. Fremont’s Battle Hymn. Quartett. Rochester: Joseph P. Shaw, [1863]. Not found in OCLC.

6. PARKHURST, Mrs. E. A. Funeral March, to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln, the Martyr President of the United States of America. New York: Horace Waters, 1865. Advert on final page cropped (with some loss) at foot. Issue without vignette portrait.

7. MACK, E. General McClellan’s Grand March. Philadelphia, Lee & Walker [1861]. Issue without coloured lithograph plate. OCLC: Michigan, Duke, Pennsylvania and Brown Universities.

8. WINNER, Septimus. Give us back our old Commander. Philadelphia, Winner & Co, [1862]. OCLC: LC and Morgan.

9. EASTBURN, The hearty Welcome Home. Philadelphia: Smith, 1865. OCLC: no copies of Smith imprint but 2 of Auner: AAS and NYHS and one of Johnson imprint: NYHS.

10. BECKEL, J. C. Monody on the death of Abraham Lincoln. Sixteenth President of the United States. Born Feb. 12th, 1808, died by the hand of an assassin April 15th, 1865. Philadelphia: Marsh, 1865. OCLC: this issue Lincoln Museum only plus one copy of a Cincinnati imprint of same year at Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

11. WHEELOCK, O. Richmond Falls, the War is O’er: Philadelphia: March, 1865. No hard copy found in OCLC.

12. CASONELLA. A Song of Peace. New York, W. A. Pond, 1865. OCLC: UPenn, Ocean State, Brigham Young, AAS.

A contemporary sketch of the dedicatee of The Lark Ascending, signed by her at the Glastonbury Festival, 1919. Marie Hall (1884-1956) was the outstanding violinist of her generation and it was for her that Vaughan Williams wrote this most popular piece of English music. First written in 1914, performance of The Lark was delayed by Williams’ service in the Great War. He and Hall revised it together in 1920 for a piano and violin performance that year, before she performed it for the first time in a full orchestral version (under Sir Adrian Boult) later that year. Hill played a famous Stradivarius which later took her name.

An almanac for the year 1820. Engraved throughout with text and images. A delightful miniature almanac, which is preceded by several popular songs (‘Aux Dames’, ‘le Portraits’, ‘le Banquet’, ‘la Barque à Caron’ etc.) Though without imprint, this is characteristic of the popular miniature books produced by Marcilly. Not in Worldcat (which locates only an 1821 issue, described as in ‘128mo’). It is probable that it was issued in these two years only. Grand-Carteret 1908 (citing a copy in the collection of Georges Salomons).

An attractive juvenile broadside, illustrating players of 16 different instruments, including guitar, flute harp, keyboard, trumpet, hurdy-gurdy and percussion.