Related material

Chambers’s Book of Days
R. Chambers. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1879.
“A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, including anecdote, biography, & history; curiosities of literature and oddities of human life and character.” Contains interesting material relating to traditional customs, including song and dance. Images of each page. Navigation is tediously slow and unnecessarily complicated, as sections are linked to from the home page by days of the year and there is no list of page numbers. Additionally, the two volumes are paginated separately (Vol I ends with June), so we provide a few additional links below to make life a little easier:
Link: Chambers’s Book of Days
General index (page 1 of 45)
List of illustrations (Vol I: page 1 of 2)
List of illustrations (Vol II: page 1 of 2)
Vol II: title page
University of Virginia electronic text center: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/

The complaynt of Scotland
Robert Wedderburn, ca. 1510 – ca. 1557.
Transcribed from the Early English Text Society edition, 1872. Early references to various songs. Text available as ASCII Text, DOS ASCII Text, html.
Link: The complaynt of Scotland
Oxford Text Archive: registration required. http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/

Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Or A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, And Pickpocket Eloquence
Robert Cromie, ed. “Unabridged From The Original 1811 Edition … Compiled Originally by Captain Grose.”
A revised and expanded edition of the book first(?) printed in 1785. Handy for obscure terms of the kind to be found in broadside ballads. Plain text transcription, single file.
Link: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Project Gutenburg: http://www.gutenberg.org/

The Every-Day Book
William Hone. London, 1825-26.
“Commentary and readings appropriate for each day of the year”. Includes significant material relating to traditional custom and song. An ongoing project which will eventually include the entire text as image files, html and TEI, together with full indexes and a search facility.
Link: The Every-Day Book
The William Hone BioText (University of Alabama): http://www.uab.edu/english/hone/

The Internet Library of Early Journals
A digital library of 18th and 19th Century journals, including significant runs of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1843 – 1863), The Gentleman’s Magazine (1731 – 1750) and Notes and Queries (1849 – 1869). These three all contain items of interest to students of traditional song, dance and custom; Notes and Queries in particular is worth browsing at length. There are also various search options. A joint project of the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford, hosted on the Bodleian Library server.
Link: Internet Library of Early Journals
The Bodleian Library: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/

London Labour and the London Poor, vol. I
Henry Mayhew.
The classic work on Victorian working class London. A mine of information on traditional culture of the period. Html format with hyperlinked contents page. The original pagination is preserved; if a little inelegantly.
Link: London Labour and the London Poor
University of Virginia electronic text center: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/

Reminiscences of Horsham
Henry Burstow. Horsham: Free Christian Church Book Society, 1911.
The autobiography (actually put together by his friend William Albery) of Henry Burstow, the prolific traditional singer and bellringer, many of whose songs were noted by collectors such as Lucy Broadwood and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Includes Henry’s list of the 420 songs that were in his active repertoire. The book is transcribed to html, with the original pagination retained; all indexes are hyperlinked and the original illustrations are included.
Link: Reminiscences of Horsham
South Riding Folk Arts Network Miscellany: http://3.10.228.147/miscellany/