Introduction to Llewellyn Jewitt's Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire

Derby, February 1867

It is certainly somewhat curious that, ina county so confessedly rich in ballads and in popular songs as Derbyshire is, no attempt should hitherto have been made to collect together and give to the world even a smal selection of these valuable and interesting remains. Such, however, is the fact, and the ballads, the traditions, and the lyrics of the county have remained to the present day uncollected, and, it is to be feared, uncared for, by those to whom the task of collection in days gone by would have been tolerable easy. It has therefore remained for me, with my present volume, to initiate a series of works which shall enhance these and kindred subjects, and vindicate for Derbyshire its place in the literary history of the kingdom.

In my present volume........ TBC.