Lines of succession in an English ballad tradition: The publishing history and textual descent ofThe Wandering Jew’s Chronicle

Abstract

This article combines bibliography, book history, literary and traditional textual criticism with phylogenetic analysis to infer the publishing history and textual descent of a short printed ballad history of England— The Wandering Jew’s Chronicle . Probably first published in 1634, The Wandering Jew’s Chronicle most commonly survives as a ‘broadside ballad’—a cheaply-printed song-sheet—illustrated with woodcut portraits of kings and queens of England. It remained in print until ca.1830, its text and illustrations updated to the present. Although in partial synchrony with English history, much of its publishing history and textual descent is uncertain. This article demonstrates how historical evidence, taken in particular from book trade history, may be usefully combined with textual and bibliographical evidence, and that it is at times essential for understanding the descent of the text. The textual descent of the ballad is visualized in a stemma that summarizes key findings from both traditional and phylogenetic analyses.