The Illustrated Victorian Songbook

• RRP: £14.95
• ISBN: 978-0-7181-2488-5
• Format: 330 x 241 mm
• Pictures: 200 b/w, 125 colour
• Binding: Hardback
• Extent: 356 pages
• Rights: All available
• Edition: 1st

This unique and delightful songbook, compiled and presented by modern music hall artistes, is meant to be used. Each song is reproduced from the original Victorian song sheets, with piano accompaniment and words large enough to be read by a fair-sized gathering behind the piano stool. The book is illustrated and decorated in the elaborate style so beloved by the Victorians. It features more than 300 photographs, engravings, paintings and other period illustrations and a full accompanying text, as well as numerous text boxes, sidebars and captions, laid out in magazine style. The Illustrated Victorian Songbook revives in all its charm and vitality the first great age of popular entertainment.

‘In addition to giving the words and music of practically every song anyone is likely to know, it is a pleasure to read, with splendid period illustrations and a text which tells us all we want to know about each song.’
– Auberon Waugh, Daily Mail

Foreword by David Jacobs

Preface

Introduction

THE DRAWING ROOM SOIREE
Home! Sweet Home!
In the Gloaming
Killarney
Come into the Garden Maud
Come Home, Father
Love’s Old Sweet Song
The Baby on the Shore
Abide With Me
Eternal Father, Strong to Save
The Holy City
The Lost Chord

THE STRONG AND SUPPER ERA
She Was Poor, But She Was Honest
Sam Hall
Villikins and his Dinah
The Ratcatcher’s Daughter
Polly Perkins of Paddington Green

THE BLACK-FACE MINSTRELS
Oh! Susanna
Beautiful Dreamer
The Gipsy’s Warning
Ring the Bell Softly
Oh, Dem Golden Slippers!

ON THE HALLS, POPULAR CHORUSES
Champagne Charlie
Dear Old Pals
Two Lovely Black Eyes!
Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay!
Daisy Bell
Oh! Mr Porter
The Lily of Laguna

ON THE HALLS, CHARACTER SONGS
The Flying Trapeze
The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
If It Wasn’t for the ’Ouses In Between
It’s a Great Big Shame!
She Was One of the Early Birds
Wot Cher!
My Old Dutch

THE HEIGHT OF SENTIMENT
After the Ball
The Boy in the Gallery
Are We to Part Like This?
When the Summer Comes Again
The Coster’s Serenade
A Bird in a Gilded Cage
Sweet Rosie O’Grady

RAMPANT PATRIOTISM
Macdermott’s War Song
Comrades
The Soldiers of the Queen
Good-bye Dolly Gray

EVERGREENS
The Londonderry Air
Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes
Annie Laurie
The Ash Grove
Heart of Oak
Rule Britannia
Sally in Our Alley

SONGS FROM THE SHOWS
I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls
Then You’ll Remember Me
The Moon Has Raised Her Lamp Above
I Am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee
A Wand’ring Minstrel I
The Amorous Goldfish
The Honeysuckle and the Bee

Bibliography

Sources of Music in This Book

Picture Credits

Acknowledgements

Aline Waites, actress, comic and playwright, has written or co-written at least 25 musical plays and revues. For many years she and her partner, Robin Hunter, collaborated on scripts for plays, revues and musical theatre of all kinds, and together they wrote The Illustrated Victorian Song Book.

Robin Hunter (1929-2004) was a skilled and versatile performer and writer in the field of musicals, music hall and comedy. The son of the actor Ian Hunter, he appeared in many film and television roles such as Up Pompeii, the Carry On films, Sherlock Holmes and Poirot, and performed in several musicals including Damn Yankees. He was a talented playwright and wrote comedies such as Botome’s Dream in which Shakespeare is put on trial for plagiarism, and Aladdin & His Microsoft Compatible Floppy Drive Laptop.

INTRODUCTION

No one who travels by rail can fail to notice that he is using an old form of land transport, the first in fact to offer an advance on horse power. The trains may be modern or relatively so, but neon signs, petrol stations and all the clutter and ribbon development associated with the ubiquitous motor car are comparatively absent along the railway lines. The countryside very often comes up to the tracks, the scene is more pastoral, still recognisably the world portrayed by the early railway artists such as J. C. Bourne, A. F. Tait and many others, in which sheep grazed beneath the viaducts and the carriage-borne gentry travelled out to admire the ornamental tunnel portals and the steam horses of the iron roads.

Even in the cities the railways usually approach the stations against a backdrop of old mills and warehouses, some still bearing enamel or wooden advertising signs, all mixed up with Victorian terraces displaying their backyards and too often awaiting the demolition contractor. Here we scent the Victorian underworld of Doré, Mayhew and Dickens.

PERTH

Perth is a remarkable station in several respects, and is well named ‘the Gateway to the Highlands’; before the Grouping of 1923 it was here that enormous volumes of summer traffic were exchanged with the Highland Railway. In the summer of 1923, for instance, 25 major long-distance expresses containing sleeping cars, Pullmans and through coaches to and from a wide variety of destinations were re-marshalled at Perth each day for the south-bound direction.

For its design Tite clearly copied many features from his station at Carlisle, particularly the generally Tudor styling and the turret. The main footbridge (added later) is virtually a replica of the Carlisle footbridge.

The fine two-storey buildings have had several extensions over the years, and at one time housed three separate booking offices, for the Highland, the Caledonian and the North British. The old refreshment room still retains its Corinthian columns, deep panelled ceiling and marble fireplace, relics of more prosperous times.