Stage, Street, Garden, or Parlour: The Ubiquitous Popular Songs of Late Georgian England

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the ubiquity of popular songs across print traditions, performance venues, and social classes in England during the late Georgian era. It examines the formatting and presentation of an eighteenth-century chapbook, contextualizing it within contemporaneous print cultures before exploring how the songs in this item of cheap literature relate to music from English comic operas, pleasure garden entertainments, and domestic spaces. Through this case study, the article aims to illuminate a compelling era of English song before the “elite” became exclusive of the “popular,” when songs moved fluidly between social contexts and print traditions and were heard, known, and performed by multiple classes of English society.