Victoria Nautical Song Circle
NAUTICAL SONG BOOKS[GVPL indicates item available from the Greater Victoria Public Library system.]
- Ashton, John Real Sailor Songs Reissued 1972 Benjamin Blom, New York, NY. Library of Congress Card Number 78-160612. First published London, 1891. Includes 200 illustrations. [GVPL. Lyrics only. Real sailor songs indeed! Many pre-video goodies! Best for a collector or scholar as few popularly sung songs are included. Additionally there are a number of references to popular tunes of the day, which aren't so common as to be commonly known now.]
- Blood, Peter and Annie Patterson Rise Up Singing - The Group Singing Songbook 1988, 1992 Sing Out Corporation, Bethlehem, PA. ISBN 0-9626704-7-2(spiral bound). Library of Congress Card Number 89-117888. [GVPL. Lyrics & chords. Useful for group singing, leading songs you already "know" or singing along. Check sections other than SEA for shanties, forbitters and other seas songs.]
- Doerflinger, William Main Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman 1990 Meyerbooks, Glenwood, Illinois. ISBN 0-916638-40-5. Library of Congress Card Number 72-81076. Originally published as Shantymen and Shantyboys 1951. [GVPL. Lyrics & music. Excellent collecting/preservation of versions from various sailors on acetate discs, wax records and tape. "Original voices" as it were. A 'must have'.]
- Hugill, Stan I. Shanties From The Seven Seas 1994, 1996 Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut. ISBN 0-913372-70-6. Library of Congress Card Number 84-757301. First published 1961. Reprinted 1966(with corrections) , 1979 and 1984. Second (abridged) edition 1984. Reprinted 1987. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. [GVPL. Lyrics & music. Best single book for fun and popular study. Very thorough analysis of origins, variants and rituals. Mentions Doerflinger frequently. A real sailor. Great drawings. The 'must have' book in either/both of current soft cover and/or 1966, 79 or 84 hardcover. The original 1961 ed. has some later admitted errors. Available in Victoria at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia giftshop for $24.95.]
- Palmer, Roy I. The Oxford Book of Sea Songs 1986 Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-214159-7. Library of Congress Card Number 85-753420. British Library Catalogue 784.6'86238 M1977.S2. [GVPL. Lyrics & music. More familiar songs than at first it appears.]
- Sharp, Cecil James, 1859-1924. English folk-chanteys : with pianoforte accompaniment, introduction and notes (1914) Call number: 747409. Available at the Internet Archive.
- What a find. While not written as songs, in as much as no music seems to have been turned up for or with them, some folks have put a number of her writings to music.
Smith, C. (Cicely) Fox, d1954: Ocean Racers, 1931, P. Allen, London, Clipper Ships; Sailortown Days, 1923, Methuen, London; Rovings, Sea Songs and Ballads, 1921, E. Mathews, London; Ships and Folks, 1920, Mathews, London; Sailortown, Sea Songs and Ballads, c1919, Georg H. Doran Co., New York; Fighting Men, 1916, E. Mathews, London, World War 1914-1918 poetry. All titles available as on-line books, viewable on-line or download to read off line. All at the Internet Archive.
Documents at the Internet Archive are available for viewing as ASCII text files, PDF (use Foxit, Sumatra, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc.) and as DjVu (Wikipedia entry). There are quite a few e-books on the Internet Archvei in a new, to me (2012). file format for e-publishing known as EPUB (Wikipedia). These seem to be quite compact and are viewable in cross-platform, open source (FOSS - Free Open Source Software) viewer and e-book management application called calibre. Get it, read some reviews, take it for a whirl.
NAUTICAL FOLKLORE BOOKS
- Baker, Margaret The Folklore of the Sea 1979 David & Charles (Publishers) Ltd, Devon. ISBN 0-7153-7568-7. British Library Catalogue 390'.4'6238 G540. [GVPL. Fabulous book; Ship names/naming, rituals, superstitions, practises. Both Merchant and Naval. Sailor's language.] It appears the GVPL has withdrawn or replaced this volume with a similarly named one by different authors. Will work it out and post.
If you have any suggestions for inclusion please e-mail me by removing the hopefully obvious bit.
Victoria Nautical Song Circle
Created 98/12/06. Updated 2012/10/29 - wow, three years to the day since last update. Spooky.