BALLAD AND STREET LITERATURE PRINTING IN PETTICOAT LANE, 1740s-1760s 
DAVID ATKINSON 
The strongest evidence for ballads in eighteenth-century England lies in the considerable numbers of printed broadsides and chapbooks that survive from the period. The printers of ballads also issued prose works aimed at the same street literature market. This paper provides a glimpse into the trade by describing the variety of publications issued by Larkin How in London’s Petticoat Lane from the 1740s to the 1760s. Keywords: Larkin How, Petticoat Lane, ballads, broadsides, chapbooks 
Najmočnejši dokaz obstoja balad v Angliji 18. stoletja so številne ohranjene natisnjene balade na letakih in v majhnih knjižicah. Tiskarji balad so izdajali tudi pripovedi, prav tako namenjene ulični prodaji literature. Članek predstavlja bežen pogled v trgovanje z opisom raznovrstnih publikacij, ki jih je izdajal Larkin How na Petticoat Lane v Londonu od 40. do 60. let 18. stoletja. Ključne besede: Larkin How, Petticoat Lane, balade, balade na letakih, male knjižice balad 
The “discovery of the people” that took place during the Romantic era across much of Europe gave prominence to oral sources. Breton gwerziou, Slovenian ballads, and the songs of Gaelic-speaking Scotland and Ireland, for instance, were all largely oral forms. On the other hand, songbooks were printed in the Dutch Republic from the sixteenth century onwards, broadside ballads were sold across Spain and distributed to the Spanish colonies, and in Germany the tradition of Bänkelsang, which combined print, song, and pictorial display, lasted for some four centuries. Welsh ballads circulated as small pamphlets from the eighteenth century, and song chapbooks known as skillingstrykk were printed in nineteenth-century Norway. So far as the English-language ballads and folk songs are concerned, scholarship has been dominated by the work of Francis James Child, who was notoriously ambivalent about printed sources (Brown 2010). Steve Roud in his Folk Song in England has a chapter on the eighteenth century titled “Where Is Our Folk Song Hiding?” (Roud 2017). There is a reasonable amount of written and printed evidence about vernacular singing at that time, but the evidence for the actual songs that were sung is fairly thin, and only quite a small proportion of the titles mentioned correspond with folk songs that were collected at a later date. Accordingly, it is precisely to cheap print of the broadside and chapbook kind that we have to look in order to begin to chart the repertoire. 
The most convenient sources to explore are the catalogues of “old ballads” issued in 1754 and 1764 by the Dicey/Marshall firm in London, the dominant publishers of street literature over the period c.1730–1780 (Stoker 2014, 2017). The Dicey/Marshall corpus is a very large one, but there were other firms in London and elsewhere specializing in ballads, 
DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2018470206 TRADITIONES, 47/2, 2018, 105–115 
nearly always in conjunction with other kinds of street literature such as chapbook fiction, non-fiction, and collections of songs. In London, there were Robert Powell and Charles Sympson in Stonecutter Street (Atkinson 2018), and Larkin How in Petticoat Lane. This essay seeks to describe the business in cheap print carried on in Petticoat Lane during the middle years of the eighteenth century, with a view to shedding further light on the ballads in circulation at that time. 
John How (c.1657–1719) and Job How, who may have been twins, were bound appren­tice on the same day in 1672 and became free of the Stationers’ Company in 1679/80. The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) records imprints from the 1680s through to the second decade of the eighteenth century that name John How, or J. How, and a few more that name both John and Job How, or J. and J. How. John or J. How is associated with several different addresses, in particular the Ram Head Inn in Fenchurch Street, the Seven Stars in Sweeting’s Alley, near the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, and the Seven Stars in Talbot Court, Gracechurch Street. The only address associated with Job How is the Ram Head Inn (in a Job and John How imprint), and from the evidence of addresses it looks as if John was the more prolific bookseller, although J. How imprints make it difficult to distinguish the brothers.1 A small number of imprints show John How associated with a George Larkin.2 Titles range from book-length publications to pamphlets, chapbooks, and broadsides. They include a number of works by the satirist Edward (Ned) Ward (1667–1731), as well as periodicals such as Mercurius Publicus, the Observator, and the Weekly Comedy. The tone is frequently polemical, with a strongly Whig/Protestant bias, although there are also some more straightforwardly literary works. There is nothing that readily falls into the street literature category as it is usually conceived. 
Larkin How was apprenticed to Job How and was freed by patrimony in 1736, thus identifying Job How as his father, and set up in business as a master printer in Whitechapel.3 The Whitechapel district lay some way to the east of the main centres of the contemporary metropolitan book trade (Raven 2007: 156). Larkin’s son James How was apprenticed to his father in 1742 and became free in 1749, after which he, too, set up as a printer in Whitechapel; another son, Larkin How the younger, was apprenticed to his father in 1745 and became free in 1758; and George How, evidently yet another son, was freed by patrimony in 1776.4 There are several other individuals with the surname How(e) listed in the British Book Trade Index (BBTI) but it is difficult to determine whether they are related in any way. 
1 For John and Job How, see Anderson 2004; McKenzie 1974: 73 (no. 1957), 109 (no. 2938); Plomer 1968 [1922]: 162–163; Treadwell 1980: 42–43. 
2 This was probably George Larkin, father or son (Plomer 1968 [1922]: 183–84). Plomer, Bushnell, and Dix (1932: 186), has a unique record of a printer called Larkin (no first name) in Petticoat Lane in 1732. 
3 For Larkin How, see McKenzie 1978: 180 (no. 4165, and Larkin How entry). 
4 For this further generation of the How family, see McKenzie 1978: 180 (nos. 4172, 4173, 4171). 
As far as we know, Larkin How was primarily a publisher of short printed works, in broadside or chapbook format, most of which can be comfortably categorized as street lit­erature or jobbing work. On the final pages of two Tom Long the Carrier chapbooks there appears an announcement of a kind familiar to students of street literature: A Catalogue of Histories and Merry Books, Printed and Sold by Larkin How, Printer in Petticoat Lane, London. Where Country Chapmen and Travellers, &c. may be furnished with the following Histories, &c. [. . .] With Great Variety of Old Ballads, Slips, and Patters, &c. Imprints mostly have the name L. How, but a few give the first name in full. A smaller number of similar publications with just Petticoat Lane in the imprint can reasonably be ascribed to How. Those items that can be dated fall during the 1740s–1760s, although it is possible that Larkin How the younger continued the business later in the century. An anomaly among the L. How imprints is that two of them (the narrative of the life of William Page and the account of the Doddington shipwreck, both dating from the 1750s) give the address as Snow Hill, located in a book trade district well to the west of Whitechapel and Petticoat Lane. It is unknown whether How had business interests elsewhere, or contracted another printer, or whether this was another L. How altogether. 
Most of How’s ballads were printed as large broadsides, with a few more in eight-page chapbook format. Among the titles are several dating from the previous century, such as The Famous Flower of Serving-men, The Life and Death of the Famous Thomas Stukely, and The Wand’ring Jew’s Chronicle.5 The Vanity and Vain Glory of Mortals, quite widely printed as a chapbook ballad, is a rewritten and condensed version of a longer religious poem by Nathaniel Crouch, The Vanity of the Life of Man, which went through at least five editions in London between 1688 and 1729. Other titles are not known before the mid-eighteenth century and may well have originated around then, such as The Berkshire Lady, The Contented Lovers, The Oxford-shire Tragedy, The Politick Wife, The Prodigal Daughter, The Staffordshire Maid, The Tavern Kitchen Fray, The Temple Wedding, and The Unhappy Lady of Hackney, which were all issued by other firms as well, including Dicey/Marshall, although it is difficult to establish precedence. How seems to have made something of a speciality of Robin Hood ballads, issuing nearly a dozen individual titles and a 92-page Robin Hood’s Garland, and several of them are not otherwise known on broadsides at this time. It would be unwise to make too much of this, however, because the ballads were regularly included in the Robin Hood garlands that appeared throughout the century.6 These Robin Hood titles represent the main area of overlap between How’s output and the Child canon. 
A few of the ballads can be connected with folk songs collected in the Victorian/ Edwardian period, among them The Contented Lovers (“Shepherd Adonis”), George Barnwell, The Famous Flower of Serving-men, The Staffordshire Maid (“The Maid and the Box”). A small 
5 For the history of this last title, see Bergel, Howe and Windram, 2016. 
6 Dugaw (1987: 89) describes How’s Robin Hood ballads as antiquarian products, erroneously dating them to the 1790s and overlooking the continuity since the late seventeenth century. 
number of titles look as if they might possibly have originated with Larkin How. The Fortunate Sailors Garland provides a precursor for a slip song, The Merchant’s Courtship to the Brazier’s Daughter, and then for the folk song “Jack the Jolly Tar”. Sir Hugh in the Grimes Downfall is probably a rewritten version of a seventeenth-century ballad, The Life and Death of Sir Hugh of the Grime. The 1746 Nottingham Tragedy, an account of one John Painter who murdered his pregnant sweetheart Ann Chiseck, is extant in one further copy which sets the crime in 1752.7 It appears that the story, although ostensibly coloured with local references, is entirely fictional (something that is not uncommon) and that the Petticoat Lane printing is the earlier one. 
Every bit as important as the ballads, How published prose chapbook “histories” and “merry books” of up to twenty-four pages. These were a staple of eighteenth-century street literature, typified by venerable stories such as The History of Sir Richard Whittington and The Princely History of Crispin & Crispanius (an abridgement of Thomas Deloney’s The Gentle Craft), jest books such as Nimble and Quick, and comic prose tales like the story of Tom Long the Carrier. The catalogues appended to the Tom Long chapbooks list more titles of this kind, all of them familiar from other chapbook printers, but which are apparently no longer extant with How’s imprint (some copies without imprint, or with generic London imprints, might turn out to be Petticoat Lane publications). 
In addition, there are practical chapbook publications like the guide to West-Country fairs and (possibly) Joseph Davies’s polemical “humble proposal” for crime prevention. News chapbooks report things like the trial of Dr Hensey in 1758, and the misfortunes of Robert Barker, carpenter on board the Thetis Snow, published in 1762. The two Snow Hill titles, on the wreck of the Doddington and the life of the highway robber William Page (the latter a condensed version of the story as published by other booksellers, such as M. Cooper and H. Owen), are of similar kind. Equally typical of the output of booksellers/printers engaged with street literature, How also published religious works such as An Abstract of the Holy Bible, Richard Brightly’s dying sermon England’s Timely Remembrance, Richard Standfast’s verse Dialogue between a Blind-Man and Death, and a selection of hymns. 
In addition to the narrative ballads, there are broadside elegies on the deaths of Samuel Stockell and the Prince of Wales, as well as some examples of a distinctive genre of street literature, the broadside sheets that were presented at Christmas or New Year by local officials (bellmen, bell-ringers, night-watchmen, constables, beadles, lamp-lighters) to the residents of their parishes, appealing for seasonal gifts. Bellman’s sheets are typically headed with an image of the bellman and framed by smaller woodcuts of scenes from the life of Christ, and they carry verses that are both pious and topical. The lamp-lighter’s verses allude to the occupation and its pitfalls. A typical woodcut shows the Guildhall, with a lamp-lighter’s ladder broken by a passing carriage, the caption reading “This is our Fate”. The custom 
The Nottingham Tragedy (London: printed by J. Johnson) [ESTC N49045]. 
of presenting such verses at the turn of the year probably amounted to little more than jobbing work for the printers, but evidently constituted part of the seasonal fabric of life in urban parishes (O’Connell 1999: 27; Hitchcock 2004: 182–183). ESTC records substantial numbers of sheets printed for parish officials in London and other English towns by dif­ferent printers from the 1680s right through to the end of the following century. How’s extant sheets date between 1742 and 1759, and in view of their annual nature he might well have printed many more than have survived (or have been catalogued to date). They were also printed in Petticoat Lane by Thomas Bayley from the 1760s and S. (Susannah) Bayley, probably his widow, towards the end of the century, both for London parishes and for places as far afield as Chatham, Canterbury, and Bury St Edmunds. The layout and titles are entirely conventional, but the verses, while remaining similar in style and content, sustain a commendable degree of inventiveness. 
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey (England’s central criminal court) for 12 September 1759 shed some additional light on Larkin How’s business: 
Sarah, wife of Solomon Cater, was indicted for stealing eight reams of part of 
Robin-Hood’s Garland, value 20 s. two reams of the history of the Kings and 
Queens, value 5 s. three reams of the lives of the Apostles, value 5 s. and four 
reams of several sorts of histories, value 20 s. the property of Larkin How, privately 
in his warehouse, Aug. 1. 
Larkin How is a Printer in Petticoat-lane; the prisoner rented a lodging in the 
same house where the prosecutor’s warehouse was. She had taken at several times 
the divers reams mentioned in the indictment, out of the warehouse, and sold 
to divers people that kept Chandlers-shops, and Cheesemongers; where part of 
them were found, which the prisoner owned to. Guilty 4 s. 10 d. (t17590912-31) 
The “history of the Kings and Queens” was probably The Wand’ring Jew’s Chronicle. The “lives of the Apostles” does not immediately match anything extant from Petticoat Lane and could refer to any number of contemporary publications, but something along the lines of a Dicey chapbook titled Acts and Monuments seems likely.8 The total stolen over a period of time was seventeen reams, amounting to some 8,000–8,500 sheets (a ream of hand-made paper was normally either 480 or 500 sheets), with a value of L2 10s. The verdict of theft under the value of five shillings meant that a mandatory death sentence did not have to be applied and in the event Sarah Cater was sentenced to transportation for seven years. 
The charges against her reveal something about the sort of quantities of printed matter a bookseller like How might have in stock. Information about print runs for ballads is 
Acts and Monuments; or, An Historical Account of the Life and Death of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the Lives and Martyrdoms of the Holy Evangelists and Apostles; to which is added, The Lord’s Prayer and Apostles Creed in Verse (Northampton: printed by W. Dicey) [ESTC T92696]. 
generally hard to come by and the quantities cited here are scarcely conclusive, but two reams of The Wand’ring Jew’s Chronicle points to a print run of at least one thousand. It also says something about the value of the paper in its own right and the uses to which printed chapbooks and broadsides might be put – in this instance, for shopkeepers to wrap their wares. Paper comprised the greatest capital cost for publishers at this period, although there was obviously some investment tied up in the composition and printing as well (Gaskell 1995 [1972]: 177–179; Raven 2007: 308–310). 
Where the Petticoat Lane ballad and chapbook titles match those printed elsewhere the texts are similar, albeit with some variants. The iconography likewise tends to be much the same, even when the images are not from the same woodblocks. How’s two Tom Long chapbooks have a title-page image showing the full-length figure of a chapman wearing an outfit of doublet and hose, a hat with a feather, a tray for his wares at his waist, and carrying a paper in each hand, presumably representing a ballad or similar (in actual fact, Tom Long is a trickster or mountebank rather than a real pedlar). The iconography is the same in outline across a range of half a dozen different Tom Long chapbooks of the period, but the figure is facing to the (reader’s) left in copies from Petticoat Lane and Aldermary Churchyard (Dicey/Marshall), more or less to the front in one from Stonecutter Street, and to the right in one printed for the travelling stationers.9 The last is a noticeably more fantastical figure with an intense stare to the eyes. There is some support here for the assumption that publishers can sometimes be identified from their woodcuts, but they do require to be examined closely. 
Larkin How has on occasion been placed with printers of the late eighteenth century (Neuburg 1969: 225; Dugaw 1987: 89), but all the datable items are from the 1740s–60s. The name of Larkin How does crop up once more in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey of 8 December 1784 (t17841208-26). William Abbott, a sailor on an East Indiaman called the Talbot, was prosecuted for deception, having allegedly forged a bill of sale in the name of John How, a sailor on another East Indiaman, the Warren Hastings. Larkin How was called as a witness and stated that he did have a brother called John How, who was pressed on board the Warren Hastings on 4 March 1783 and died on 28 April, but that the defendant Abbott was not him. Abbott was found guilty and sentenced to death, 
The chapbooks are (grouped by title-page image): (i) Tom Long the Carrier, 18th edn (London: printed and sold by L. How, in Petticoat Lane, near Whitechapel) [ESTC T196301]; Tom Long the Carrier, 19th edn (London: printed and sold by L. How, in Petticoat Lane, near Whitechapel) [ESTC T300792]; 
(ii) The History of Tom Long the Carrier (printed and sold in Aldermary Churchyard, Bow Lane) [ESTC T36554]; The History of Tom Long the Carrier (printed and sold in Aldermary Churchyard, London) [ESTC T167930]; The History of Tom Long the Carrier (printed and sold in London) [ESTC T165540]; (iii) Tom Long, the Carrier, 19th edn (London: printed and sold at Sympson’s Warehouse, in Stonecutter Street, Fleet Market) [ESTC T39271]; (iv) The History of Tom Long, the Carrier (printed for the travelling stationers) [ESTC T192021]. Chapbooks issued by How in Petticoat Lane and Sympson in Stonecutter Street both claim to be the 19th edition, but it is not clear that the edition statement is anything more than a puff. 
but with a recommendation to mercy from the jury. It is likely that this case involves a later generation of the How family, but the first name does suggest a connection with our street literature printer. 
Taken all together, the Larkin How/Petticoat Lane imprints provide a good illustration of the output of a bookseller/printer concentrating on street literature and jobbing work, largely restricted to the broadside and chapbook format, and they situate the narrative bal­lads which are so important to our understanding of folk song in England firmly within that literary and commercial context. 
APPENDIX: PROVISIONAL CHECKLIST OF LARKIN HOW AND PETTICOAT LANE IMPRINTS 
* = titles known only from Catalogues of Histories and Merry Books appended to the Tom Long the Carrier chapbooks. 
[William Hanover], An Abstract of the Holy Bible [ESTC T503938]. 8 pp. 
The Berkshire Lady (“Batchelors of e’ery station”) [ESTC T205879]. 
A Book of Fairs; or, A Guide to West-Country-Travelers [ESTC T167549]. 24 pp. 
The Card Fortune Book.* 
A Collection of Divine Hymns, containing I. A Song to Creating Wisdom; II. Thanksgiving for God’s Particular Providence, an Hymn; III. An Hymn, for Seriousness; IV. An Invitation to Sinners, an Hymn; V. An Hymn for One in the Faith [. . .] Part III [ESTC N493093]. 8 pp. 
The Contented Lovers; or, A Pleasant Courtship between a Shepherd and a Nymph (“Shepherd Adonis being weary of his sport”) [ESTC N4661]. 
Benjamin Brissack, bellman and cryer, A Copy of Verses Humbly Presented to All my Worthy Masters and Mistresses, in the Parish of St. John Southwark (“Begin, my muse, in soft and humble verse”) [ESTC N27551]. 1751. 
Jeremiah Gilbert, steeple-keeper and bell-ringer of the five and eight o’clock bell, and chiming every day for divine service, also engineer, A Copy of Verses Humbly Presented to All my Worthy Masters and Mistresses, of the Parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch (“With cheering hopes your bell-ringer greets”) [ESTC N505148]. 1759. 
The Delights for Young Men and Maids.* [Richard Standfast], A Dialogue between a Blind-Man and Death; also, The Great Assize; or, Christ’s Certain and Sudden Appearance to Judgment [ESTC T478695]. 12 pp. 
A Divine Dialogue, between Mr. John Williams, a Poor but Godly Person near the City of Glocester, and Sqr[.] Wright, a Covetous Wealthy Gentleman of the Same Place; together with a Dialogue between his Soul and Body after Death [. . .] [Oxford, Bodleian Library, Vet. A4 d.564]. 8 pp. 
Dreams and Moles.* 
The Egyptian Fortune Teller.* 
An Elegy on the Much Lamented Death of His Royal Highness Fredrick Prince of Wales, Who Departed this Life at Lester-House on Wednesday the 20th of this Instant March, 1750–1, in the Forty Fifth Year of his Age (“Tho’ unavailing tears can not recall”) [ESTC T205851]. 
An Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Mr. Samuel Stockell, Who Departed this Life May the 3d. 1750. in the 49th Year of his Age (“Stockell is dead, no more you hear him groan”) [ESTC T32564]. 
[Richard Brightly], England’s Timely Remembrance; or, A Warning from Heaven to Vile Sinners on Earth [ESTC T124599]. 8 pp. 
An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwell (“All youths of fair England”) [ESTC N7118]. 
The Famous Flower of Serving-men; or, The Lady Turn’ d Serving Man (“You beautious ladies great and small”) [ESTC T206181]. 
The 1st and 2nd Part of the King and Cobler.* 
The 1st and 2nd Part of the Merry Piper.* 
The 1st and 2nd Part of the Old Woman of Ratcliff Highway.* 
The First, Second, and Third Part of Tom Thumb.* 
The Fortunate Sailors Garland (“Sailors bold, observe my ditty”) [ESTC T40055]. 8 pp. 
A Genuine Narrative of the Life and Suffering, Robberies and Adventures of William Page [ESTC N30454]. Executed 1758. 
The History of Fair Rosamond.* 
The History of Honest John and Loving Kate, the First and Second Part.* 
The History of Jack Horner.* 
The History of Jane Shore.* 
The History of the Lancashire Witches.* 
The History of Mother Bunch.* 
The History of Mother Shipton.* 
The History of Sir Richard Whittington, Thrice Lord-Mayor of London [ESTC T63547]. 24 pp. 
Joseph Davies, An Humble Proposal that May Intirely Check and Restrain the Growth of Highway-men, Foot­pads, House-breakers, Shop-lifters and Other Incendiary’s [ESTC N72228]. 8 pp. Other “humble proposals” by Joseph Davies dated early 1730s (ESTC). 
The King’s Disguise and True Friendship with Robin Hood (“King Richard hearing of the pranks”) [ESTC N70891]. 
The Lady’s Garland; or, The Mantle Sprinkled with Blood (“A virtuous young lady ingenious and fair”) [ESTC T206362]. 
The Lamp-lighter’s Poem, Humbly Presented to All his Worthy Masters and Mistresses (“Amongst the various corners of my mind”) [Williamstown, MA, Chapin Library, Broadside:2bk 1742]. 1742. 
The Lamp-lighter’s Poem, Humbly Presented to All his Worthy Masters and Mistresses (“Though carping critic’s, rule censorious use”) [Williamstown, MA, Chapin Library, Broadside:2bk 1744]. 1744. 
The Lamp-lighter’s Poem, Humbly Presented to All his Worthy Masters and Mistresses (“Sir your lamp man humbly appears to you”) [ESTC T179795]. 1745. 
The Lamp-lighter’s Poem, Humbly Presented to All his Worthy Masters and Mistresses (“Revolving time another glass has run”) [ESTC T179698]. 1758. 
The Lamp-lighter’s Poem, Humby [sic] Presented to All his Worthy Masters and Mistresses (“What muse shall I invoke, her aid to bring”) [ESTC N19491]. 
The Life and Authentick Trial of Doctor Hensey for High-Treason in Giving Intelligence to the French [ESTC N19913]. 8 pp. 1758. 
The Life and Death of the Famous Thomas Stukely (“In the west of England”) [ESTC N69685]. 
Nimble and Quick, Pick and Chuse Where You Will [ESTC T182505]. 8 pp. 
The Noble Fisherman; or, Robin Hood’s Preferment (“In summer time when leaves grow green”) [ESTC T43129]. 
The Nottingham Tragedy (“Come lovers and to me lend an ear”) [ESTC T182454]. 8 pp. 1746. 
The Oxford-shire Tragedy; or, The Virgins Advice (“Young virgins fair, of beauty bright”) [ESTC T206760]. 
[William Webb, mate of the Doddington East Indiaman], A Particular Account of the Loss of the Doddington Indiaman [ESTC T187846]. 24 pp. Wrecked off South Africa 17 July 1755. 
The Pedigree, Education and Marriage of Robin Hood with Clorinda, Queen of Titbury-Feast (“Kind gentle­men, will you be patient awhile”) [ESTC N70888]. 
The Politick Wife; or, The Devil Out-witted by a Woman (“Of all the plagues upon the earth”) [ESTC T490682]. 
Princely Diversion; or, The Jovial Hunting Match (“One Valentines Day in the morning”) [ESTC T44326]. 
The Princely History of Crispin & Crispanius; or, The Gentle-Craft [ESTC T44328]. 24 pp. 
The Prodigal Daughter; or, Disobedient Lady Reclaim’ d (“Let every wicked graceless child attend”) [ESTC T182417]. 8 pp. 
Renowned Robin Hood; or, His Archery Truly Related in his Exploits before Queen Catherine (“Gold ta’en from the King’s harbingers”) [ESTC T46904]. 
Robin Hood and the Jolly Pinder of Wakefield (“In Wakefield their [sic] lives a jolly pinder”) [ESTC N70893]. 
Robin Hood and the Jolly Tinker (“In summer-time when leaves grow green”) [ESTC T169277]. 
Robin Hood and the Shepherd (“All gentlemen and yeomen good”) [ESTC N13046/ S122404]. 
Robin Hood Newly Reviv’ d; or, His Meeting and Fighting with his Cousin Scarlet (“Come listen awhile you gentlemen all”) [ESTC T45166]. 
Robin Hoods Chace; or, A Merry Progress between Robin Hood and King Henry (“Come you gallants all, to you I call”) [ESTC T45169]. 
Robin Hood’s Garland [ESTC T169306]. 92 pp. 
Robin Hood’s Golden Prize (“I have heard talk of Robin Hood”) [ESTC N13047/ T45172]. 
Sir Hugh in the Grimes Downfall; or A New Song Made on Sir Hugh in the Grime, Who Was Hang’ d for Stealing the Bishops Mare (“Good Lord John is a hunting gone”) [ESTC T48335]. 
The Staffordshire Maid (“Come all ye young gallants and listen awhile”) [ESTC N23098]. 
The Tavern Kitchen Fray (“In a tavern kitchen the cooks terrtorys [sic]”) [ESTC T206920]. 
The Temple Wedding; or, Love at First Sight (“In London fair city a young man and maid”) [ESTC T206925]. 
Tom Long the Carrier, 18th edn [ESTC T196301]. 24 pp. 
Tom Long the Carrier, 19th edn [ESTC T300792]. 24 pp. 
The True Tale of Robin Hood.* 
The True Tryal of Understanding.* 
[Robert Barker], The Unfortunate Shipwright; or, Cruel Captain [ESTC N35416]. 42 pp. 1762, price 4d. 
The Unhappy Lady of Hackney (“You youthful charming ladies fair”) [ESTC N14486]. 
The Vanity and Vain Glory of Mortals; or, The Pride and Folly of Man (“Consider man the state of infancy”) [ESTC T231685]. 8 pp. 
The Wand’ring Jew’s Chronicle; or; A Brief History of Remarkable Passages from William the Conqueror to this Present Reign (“When William Duke of Normandy”) [ESTC T301417]. 8 pp. 
REFERENCES 
Anderson, Mary P. 2004. How, John (c.1657–1719). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. DOI: 10.1093/ref:odnb/69225 
Atkinson, David. 2018. Street Literature Printing in Stonecutter Street (1740s–1780s). Publishing History 78: 9–53. 
Bergel, Giles, Christopher J. Howe, and Heather F. Windram. 2016. Lines of Succession in an English Ballad Tradition: The Publishing History and Textual Descent of The Wandering Jew’s Chronicle. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 31: 540–562. 
British Book Trade Index (BBTI). Available at: http://bbti.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ 
Brown, Mary Ellen. 2010. Child’s Ballads and the Broadside Conundrum. In: Patricia Fumerton and Anita Guerrini (eds.), Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500–1800. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 57–72. 
Child, Francis James (ed.). 1882–98. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vols. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. 
Dugaw, Dianne. 1987. The Popular Marketing of “Old Ballads”: The Ballad Revival and Eighteenth-Century 
Antiquarianism Reconsidered. Eighteenth-Century Studies 21: 71–90. 
English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC). Available at: http://estc.bl.uk/ 
Gaskell, Philip. 1995 [1972]. A New Introduction to Bibliography. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press; 
Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies. 
Hitchcock, Tim. 2004. Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London. London and New York: Hambledon and London. 
McKenzie, D. F. (ed.). 1974. Stationers’ Company Apprentices, 1641–1700. Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical 
Society. 
McKenzie, D. F. 1978. Stationers’ Company Apprentices, 1701–1800. Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society. 
Neuburg, Victor E. 1969. The Diceys and the Chapbook Trade. The Library 5th ser. 24: 219–231. 
O’Connell, Sheila. 1999. The Popular Print in England, 1550–1850. London: British Museum Press. 
Plomer, Henry R. 1968 [1922]. A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, 
Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725. Ed. Arundell Esdaile. [London]: Bibliographical Society. Plomer, H. R., G. H. Bushnell, and E. R. McC. Dix. 1932. A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers Who 
Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726 to 1775. [London]: Bibliographical Society. 
Proceedings of the Old Bailey. Available at: https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ 
Raven, James. 2007. The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade, 1450–1850. New Haven 
and London: Yale University Press. Roud, Steve. 2017. Folk Song in England. With music chapters by Julia Bishop. London: Faber & Faber. 
Stoker, David. 2014. Another Look at the Dicey-Marshall Publications: 1736–1806. The Library 7th ser. 15: 111–157. 
Stoker, David. 2017. Street Literature in England at the End of the Long Eighteenth Century. In: David 
Atkinson and Steve Roud (eds.), Street Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century: Producers, Sellers, 
Consumers. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 60–97. 
Treadwell, Michael. 1980. London Printers and Printing Houses in 1705. Publishing History 7: 5–44. 
BALADE IN TISK ULIČNE LITERATURE NA PETTICOAT LANE, 1740–1760 
Najmočnejši dokaz navzočnosti balad v Angliji 18. stoletja je veliko število natisnjenih balad na letakih in v majhnih knjižicah, nekakšnih pesmaricah, ki so se ohranile iz tega obdobja. Tiskarji balad so izdajali tudi pripovedi, prav tako namenjene tržišču ulične literature. Na podlagi opisa raznovrstnih publikacij, ki jih je izdajal Larkin How na londonski Peticoat Lane med letoma 1740 in 1760, daje članek pogled na trgovanje z baladami. Med baladami so znani naslovi kot The Famous Flower of Serving-men (Znamenita roža strežnikov), The Life and Death of the Famous Thomas Stukely (Življenje in smrt slavnega Thomasa Stukleya) in The Wand’ring Jew’s Chronicle (Kronika potujočega Juda) kakor tudi v 18. stoletju poznani naslovi balad, npr. The Berkshire Lady (Berkshirska gospa), The Oxford-shire Tragedy (Tragedija z oxfordskega območja), The Politick Wife (Politikova žena), The Tavern Kitchen Fray (Pretep v krčmi), The Temple Wedding (Poroka v templju), The Unhappy Lady of Hackney (Nesrečna gospa iz Hackneya). Howova posebnost so bile tudi balade o Robinu Hoodu, ki jih je izdal kar ducat. 
How je poleg balad izdajal tudi knjižice pripovednih besedil, imenovanih »zgodovinske zgodbe« in »šaljive knjižice«, ki so imele nekaj nad 24 strani in so bile razvrščene med častitljive zgodbe, npr. History of Sir Richard Whittington (Zgodovina gospoda Richarda Whittingtona), natisnjene zbirke šal in smešnih pripovedi, (npr. Nimble and Quick), in komične zgodbe, kakršna je zgodba o nosaču Tomu Longu (Tom Long the Carrier). 
Če povzamemo, Howove izdaje so dobro ponazorilo prispevka prodajalca/tiskarja, ki se je posvetil t. i. ulični literaturi, omejeni na letake in knjižice, in s tem postavil balade v literarni in prodajni okvir. In če dodamo: v poročilu Proceeedings of the Old Baily je za 12. september 1759 zapisano, da so iz Howovega skladišča ukradli od 8000–8500 letakov, kar pokaže, kolikšno količino tiskanega gradiva je moral imeti na zalogi. 
Dr. David Atkinson, Honorary Research Fellow, Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, King’s College, AB243FX, Scotland, UK, david.atkinson@zen.co.uk