R. Brimley Johnson — Popular British Ballads: Ancient and Modern

London, J. M. Dent & Co, 1894. First edition. Cloth. A smart limited edition of this collection of popular British ballads. Complete in four volumes. First edition. Limited to one hundred copies of which this is number five. Illustrated with a frontispiece and numerous in-text images to each volume. A comprehensive collection of British ballads, a form of verse traditionally accompanied by music and typical of the medieval periods though still relatively popular during the eighteenth century. With traditional ballads from England and Scotland as well as later ballads from across Britain with a more experimental style. Including the ballad of Robin Hood, The Hunting of the Cheviot, and poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, W. B Yates, and Sir Walter Scott. Selected by Reginald Brimley Johnson, a British editor. Illustrated by William Cubitt Cooke, an English illustrator and watercolourist. In the original blue cloth binding. Externally, sound with rubbing and light bumping to the extremities. The odd small mark to the boards with fraying to the spines, particularly to volume two where rubbing and fraying has resulted in light loss to the spine. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are very bright with the odd small spot and age toning to the endpapers. Good . Ill.: W. Cubitt Cooke. Good .