The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

 librettos with Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert developed his unique "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert would recycle in the Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

 operas. The Bab Ballads take their name from Gilbert's childhood nickname, and he later began to sign his illustrations "Bab".

Nothing else quite like the Ballads has ever been produced in the English language. They contain both satire and nonsense, as well as a great deal of utter absurdity. The Ballads were read aloud at private dinner-parties, public banquets and even in the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

. The ballads have been much published, and there are even recordings of readings of some of them.

Early history

Gilbert himself explained how the Ballads came about:

In 1861 Fun was started, under the editorship of Mr. H. J. Byron. With much labour I turned out an article three-quarters of a column long, and sent it to the editor, together with a half-page drawing on wood. A day or two later the printer of the paper called upon me, with Mr Byron's compliments, and staggered me with a request to contribute a column of 'copy' and a half-page drawing every week for the term of my natural life. I hardly knew how to treat the offer, for it seemed to me that into that short article I had poured all I knew. I was empty. I had exhausted myself: I didn't know any more. However, the printer encouraged me (with Mr. Byron's compliments), and I said I would try. I did try, and I found to my surprise that there was a little left, and enough indeed to enable me to contribute some hundreds of columns to the periodical throughout his editorship, and that of his successor, poor Tom Hood

Tom Hood

Tom Hood , was an English humorist and playwright, son of the poet and author Thomas Hood. A prolific author, he was appointed, in 1865, editor of the magazine Fun. He also founded Tom Hood's Comic Annual in 1867....

! (Gilbert, 1883).

For ten years Gilbert wrote articles and poems for Fun, of which he was also the drama critic. Gilbert's actual first column "cannot now be identified" (Stedman 1996, p. 11). The first known contribution is a drawing titled "Some mistake here" on page 56 of the 26 October 1861 issue of Fun (Plumb 2004, p. 499). However, some of Gilbert's early work for the journal remains unidentified, because many pieces were unsigned. The earliest pieces that Gilbert himself considered worthy to be collected as Bab Ballads started to appear in 1865, and then much more steadily from 1866–1869.

The series takes its title from the nickname "Bab," which is short for "baby," and may also be an homage to Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

's pet name, "Boz." Gilbert did not start signing his drawings "Bab" regularly until 1866, and he did not start calling the poems "Bab Ballads" until the first collected edition of them was published in 1869. Thereafter, his new poems in Fun were captioned "The Bab Ballads," and he started numbering them, with "Mister William" (published 6 February 1869) as No. 60.

It is not certain which poems Gilbert considered to be Nos. 1–59. Ellis counts backwards, including only those poems with drawings, and finds that the first Bab Ballad was "The Story of Gentle Archibald" (Ellis 1970, p. 13). However, Gilbert didn't include "Gentle Archibald" in his collected editions, while he did include several poems published earlier than that. Moreover, Gilbert did not limit the collected editions to poems with illustrations.

By 1870, Gilbert's Bab Ballad output started to tail off considerably, corresponding to his rising success as a dramatist. The last poem that Gilbert himself considered to be a Bab Ballad, "Old Paul and Old Tim," appeared in Fun in January 1871. In the remaining forty years of his life, he would make only a handful of verse contributions to periodicals. Some posthumous editions of the Ballads have included these later poems in the canon, although Gilbert did not.

Subsequent publication

By 1868, Gilbert's poems had won sufficient popularity to justify a collected edition. He selected forty-four of the poems (thirty-four of them illustrated) for an edition of The “Bab” Ballads – Much Sound and Little Sense. A second collected edition, More “Bab” Ballads, including thirty-five ballads (all illustrated), appeared in 1872.

In 1876, Gilbert collected fifty of his favourite poems in Fifty “Bab” Ballads, with one poem being collected for the first time ("Etiquette") and twenty-five poems that had appeared in the earlier volumes being left out. As Gilbert explained it:

The period during which they were written extended over some three or four years; many, however, were composed hastily, and under the discomforting necessity of having to turn out a quantity of lively verse by a certain day in every week. As it seemed to me (and to others) that the volumes were disfigured by the presence of these hastily written impostors, I thought it better to withdraw from both volumes such Ballads as seemed to show evidence of carelessness or undue haste, and to publish the remainder in the compact form under which they are now presented to the reader. (Gilbert 1876, p. vii).

Gilbert's readers were not happy with the loss, and in an 1882 edition Gilbert published all of the poems that had appeared in either The “Bab” Ballads or More “Bab” Ballads, once again excluding "Etiquette." (Some twentieth-century editions of More “Bab” Ballads included "Etiquette," although Gilbert had not done so.)

In 1890, Gilbert produced Songs of a Savoyard, a volume of sixty-nine detached lyrics from the Savoy Operas, each with a new title, and some of them slightly reworded to account for the changed context. Many of them also received "Bab" illustrations in the familiar style. He also included two deleted lyrics from Iolanthe

Iolanthe

Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....

(footnoted as "omitted in representation"). The effect was that of a new volume of Bab Ballads. Indeed, Gilbert had entertained calling the volume The Savoy Ballads (Ellis 1970, p. 27, n. 53).

Finally, in 1898, Gilbert produced The “Bab” Ballads with which are included Songs of a Savoyard. This volume included all of the Bab Ballads that had appeared in any of the earlier collected volumes, the sixty-nine "Songs of a Savoyard" from the 1890 volume, and eighteen additional lyrics in the same format from the four new operas he had written since then. The Bab Ballads and illustrated opera lyrics alternated, creating the impression of one integrated body of work.

For the 1898 volume, Gilbert also added over two hundred new drawings, providing illustrations for the ten ballads that had previously lacked them, and replacing most of the others. He wrote:

I have always felt that many of the original illustrations to "The Bab Ballads" erred gravely in the direction of unnecessary extravagance. This defect I have endeavoured to correct through the medium of the two hundred new drawings which I have designed for this volume. I am afraid I cannot claim for them any other recommendation. (Gilbert 1897).

It was in this form that the Ballads remained almost constantly in print through the expiration of the copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 at the end of 1961. James Ellis's new edition in 1970 restored the original drawings, retaining from the 1898 edition only those drawings that went with the previously unillustrated ballads.

Identification and Attribution

There is no universally agreed list of poems that constitute the Bab Ballads. The series clearly includes all of the poems that Gilbert himself published under that title, but there are others he did not include in any of the collected editions in his lifetime. Most writers have accepted as "Bab Ballads" any poetry (whether illustrated or not) that Gilbert contributed to periodicals, not counting poems written or repurposed as operatic lyrics.

After Gilbert's death, there were several attempts to identify additional ballads that were missing from the collected editions that had been published to that point. Dark & Gray (1923), Goldberg

Isaac Goldberg

Isaac Goldberg was an American journalist, author, critic, translator, editor, publisher, and lecturer. Born in Boston he studied at Harvard University and received a BA degree in 1910, a MA degree in 1911 and a PhD in 1912. He traveled to Europe as a journalist during World War I writing for the...

 (1929), and Searle (1932) identified and published additional ballads, not all of which have been accepted as canon. The most recent edition, edited by James Ellis (1970), includes all of those that Gilbert himself acknowledged, all of those from Dark & Gray, Goldberg, and/or Searle that Ellis finds authentic, plus others identified by no other previous compilers.

There are several ballads that Ellis identifies as Gilbert's either on stylistic grounds or by the presence of a "Bab" illustration accompanying the poem in the original publication. These include two distinct poems called "The Cattle Show," as well as "Sixty-Three and Sixty-Four," "The Dream," "The Baron Klopfzetterheim," and "Down to the Derby." These attributions are provisional, and not accepted by all scholars, because the poems themselves are unsigned, and Gilbert sometimes provided illustrations for the work of other writers.

Starting with the "new series" of Fun (those with 'n.s.' in the source reference), Gilbert's authorship is not in doubt, as the pieces for which he was paid can be confirmed from the proprietors' copies of that journal, which now reside in the Huntington Library.

List of Bab Ballads

The table below lists all of the Bab Ballads that are included in Ellis (1970). The second column shows the reference for the periodical in which each poem originally appeared, and the third column shows the collection(s) that have included the poem. The following abbreviations are used:

• TBB: The Bab Ballads (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868).
• MBB: More Bab Ballads (London: Routledge, 1872)
• 50BB: Fifty Bab Ballads ((London: Routledge, 1876)
• D&G: W.S. Gilbert: His Life and Letters, Sidney Dark & Rowland Grey (Methuen, 1923).
• Goldberg: Story of Gilbert and Sullivan, Isaac Goldberg
  Isaac Goldberg
  Isaac Goldberg was an American journalist, author, critic, translator, editor, publisher, and lecturer. Born in Boston he studied at Harvard University and received a BA degree in 1910, a MA degree in 1911 and a PhD in 1912. He traveled to Europe as a journalist during World War I writing for the...
  
   (John Murray, 1929).
• Searle: Lost Bab Ballads, Townley Searle (G. P. Putnam's Sons, Ltd. 1932),.
• Ellis: The Bab Ballads, James Ellis, ed. (Belknap Press, 1970).

Starting with "Mister William," Gilbert assigned numbers to most of the ballads that appeared in Fun. Those numbers are shown in the second column after the source reference.

Ballad Title	Original Source Reference	Collections
The Advent of Spring	Fun, II (1 February 1862), 200.	Ellis
The Cattle Show	Fun, V (12 December 1863), 121.	Searle, Ellis
The Cattle Show	The Comic News, I (19 December 1863), 180.	Ellis
Sixty-Three and Sixty-Four	Fun, V (2 January 1864), 162.	Ellis
The Dream	Fun, V (27 February 1864), 242.	Goldberg, Ellis
The Baron Klopfzetterheim	Fun, VI (19, 26 March.; 2, 9, 16 April 1864), 8-9, 18, 21, 38, 48.	Searle, Ellis
Down to the Derby	Fun, VI (28 May 1864), 110, 111.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
Something Like Nonsense Verses	Fun, n.s., I (10, 24 June 1865), 31, 51.	Ellis
Ode to my Clothes	Fun, n.s., I (10 June 1865), 33.	Ellis
The Student	Fun, n.s., I (1 July 1865), 67.	Ellis
Tempora Mutantur	Fun, n.s., I (15 July 1865), 82.	TBB, Ellis
The Bachelors' Strike	Fun, n.s., I (22 July 1865), 99.	Ellis
A Bad Night Of It	Fun, n.s., I (19 August 1865), 139.	Ellis
To Phœbe	Fun, n.s., I (26 August 1865), 144.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Ozone	Fun, n.s., II (16 September 1865), 2.	Ellis
To the Terrestrial Globe	Fun, n.s., II (30 September 1865), 29.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Monkey in Trouble	Fun, n.s., II (7 October 1865), 31.	Ellis
Back Again!	Fun, n.s., II (7 October 1865), 39.	Ellis
To My Absent Husband	Punch, XLIX (14 October 1865), 151.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
My Return	Punch, XLIX (21 October 1865), 153.	Ellis
Musings in a Music Hall	Fun, n.s., II (28 October 1865), 69.	D&G, Ellis
Pantomimic Presentiments	Fun, n.s., II (2 December 1865), 111.	Ellis
The Bar and its Moaning	Fun, n.s., II (9 December 1865), 122.	Ellis
To Euphrosyne	Fun, n.s., II (23 December 1865), 150.	Ellis
The Phantom Curate	Fun, n.s., II (6 January 1866), 162.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
To a Little Maid	Fun, n.s., II (6 January 1866), 167.	Ellis, TBB, 50BB
Ferdinando and Elvira	Fun, n.s., II (17 February 1866), 229.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Pantomime "Super" to His Mask	Fun, n.s., II (24 February 1866), 238.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Yarn of The "Nancy Bell"	Fun, n.s., II (3 March 1866), 242-243.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Monsieur le Blond on London	Fun, n.s., II (3 March 1866), 249.	Ellis
Haunted	Fun, n.s., III (24 March 1866), 12.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Reverend Rawston Wright	Fun, n.s., III (28 April 1866), 67.	Searle, Ellis
The Story of Gentle Archibald	Fun, n.s., III (19 May 1866), 100-101.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
To My Bride	Fun, n.s., III (9 June 1866), 125.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Only a Dancing Girl	Fun, n.s., III (23 June 1866), 146.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
To My Steed	Fun, n.s., III (23 June 1866), 152.	Ellis
King Borria Bungalee Boo	Fun, n.s., III (7 July 1866), 167.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Jack Casts His Shell	Fun, n.s., IV (6 October 1866), 37.	Ellis
How to Write an Irish Drama	Fun, n.s., IV (1 December 1866), 127.	Ellis
General John	Fun, n.s., V (1 June 1867), 127.	TBB, Ellis
Sir Guy the Crusader	Fun, n.s., V (8 June 1867), 139.	TBB, Ellis
Sir Galahad the Golumptious	Fun, n.s., V (15 June 1867), 149.	Ellis
Disillusioned	Fun, n.s., V (6 July 1867), 173.	TBB, Ellis
John and Freddy	Fun, n.s., V (3 August 1867), 222.	TBB, Ellis
Lorenzo de Lardy	Fun, n.s., V (10 August 1867), 225.	TBB, Ellis
The Bishop and the Busman	Fun, n.s., V (17 August 1867), 238.	TBB, Ellis
Babette's Love	Fun, n.s., V (24 August 1867), 247.	TBB, Ellis
Fanny and Jenny	Fun, n.s., V (7 September 1867), 269.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
Sir Macklin	Fun, n.s., VI (14 September 1867), 6-7.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Troubadour	Fun, n.s., VI (21 September 1867), 15.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Ben Allah Achmet	Fun, n.s., VI (28 September 1867), 25.	TBB, Ellis
The Folly of Brown	Fun, n.s., VI (5 October 1867), 35.	TBB, Ellis
Joe Golightly	Fun, n.s., VI (12 October 1867), 54.	TBB, Ellis
The Rival Curates	Fun, n.s., VI (19 October 1867), 57.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Thomas Winterbottom Hance	Fun, n.s., VI (26 October 1867), 74-75.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
A. and B.; OR, The Sensation Twins	Fun, n.s., VI (2 November 1867), 77.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
Sea-Side Snobs	Fun, n.s., VI (9 November 1867), 88.	Searle, Ellis
The Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo	Fun, n.s., VI (16 November 1867), 104.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Precocious Baby	Fun, n.s., VI (23 November 1867), 113.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Baines Carew, Gentleman	Fun, n.s., VI (30 November 1867), 124.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
A Discontented Sugar Broker	Fun, n.s., VI (14 December 1867), 137.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Force of Argument	Fun, n.s., VI (21 December 1867), 149.	TBB, Ellis
At A Pantomime	Fun, n.s., VI (28 December 1867), 165.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Three Kings of Chickeraboo	Fun, n.s., VI (18 January 1868), 191.	TBB, Ellis
The Periwinkle Girl	Fun, n.s., VI (1 February 1868), 211.	TBB, Ellis
Captain Reece	Fun, n.s., VI (8 February 1868), 221.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Thomson Green and Harriet Hale	Fun, n.s., VI (15 February 1868), 242.	TBB, Ellis
Bob Polter	Fun, n.s., VI (29 February 1868), 260-261.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Ghost, the Gallant, the Gael, and the Goblin	Fun, n.s., VII (14 March 1868), 6.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Ellen McJones Aberdeen	Fun, n.s., VII (21 March 1868), 16.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Sensation Captain	Fun, n.s., VII 4 April 1868), 43.	TBB, Ellis
Trial by Jury	Fun, n.s., VII (11 April 1868), 54.	Ellis
The Reverend Micah Sowls	Fun, n.s., VII (18 April 1868), 65.	TBB, Ellis
Peter the Wag	Fun, n.s., VII (25 April 1868), 75.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Story of Prince Agib	Fun, n.s., VII (16 May 1868), 107.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Gentle Alice Brown	Fun, n.s., VII (23 May 1868), 111.	TBB, 50BB, Ellis
Pasha Bailey Ben	Fun, n.s., VII (6 June 1868), 133.	MBB
Blabworth-cum-Talkington	Fun, n.s., VII (20 June 1868), 153.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
The Sailor Boy To His Lass	Fun, n.s., VII (27 June 1868), 163,	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
Sir Conrad and the Rusty One	Fun, n.s., VII (4 July 1868), 174.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
The Cunning Woman	Fun, n.s., VII (25 July 1868), 205.	MBB, Ellis
The Modest Couple	Fun, n.s., VII (8 August 1868), 225.	MBB, Ellis
The "Bandoline" Player	Fun, n.s., VII (22 August 1868), 246.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo	Fun, n.s., VII (29 August 1868), 255.	MBB, Ellis
Boulogne	Fun, n.s., VIII (12 September 1868), 7.	Searle, Ellis
Brave Alum Bey	Fun, n.s., VIII (19 September 1868), 16.	MBB, Ellis
Gregory Parable, LL.D.	Fun, n.s., VIII (3 October 1868), 35.	MBB, Ellis
Lieutenant-Colonel Flare	Fun, n.s., VIII (10 October 1868), 46.	MBB, Ellis
The Hermit	Fun, n.s., VIII (17 October 1868), 62.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
Annie Protheroe	Fun, n.s., VIII (24 October 1868), 65.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Captain and the Mermaids	Fun, n.s., VIII (7 November 1868), 85.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
An Unfortunate Likeness	Fun, n.s., VIII (14 November 1868), 96.	MBB, 50BB
A Boulogne Table d'Hôte	Tom Hood's Comic Annual for 1868 (London: Fun office, 1868), 78.	Searle, Ellis
The Railway Guard's Song	Tom Hood's Comic Annual for 1868 (London: Fun office, 1868), 79.	Ellis
The Undecided Man	Tom Hood's Comic Annual for 1868, (London: Fun office, 1868) 79.	Searle, Ellis
Premonitory Symptoms	Fun, n.s., VIII (28 November 1868), 117.	Ellis
Lost Mr. Blake	Fun, n.s., VIII (28 November 1868), 121.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
Little Oliver	Fun, n.s., VIII (5 December 1868), 132.	MBB, Ellis
What Is A Burlesque?	Belgravia Annual, ed. M. E. Braddon (London, 1868), 106-107.	Ellis
The Phantom Head	Fun, n.s., VIII (19 December 1868), 151.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
The Politest of Nations!	Fun, n.s., VIII (2 January 1869), 173.	Ellis
Woman's Gratitude	Fun, n.s., VIII (9 January 1869 ), 176-177.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
The Baby's Vengeance	Fun, n.s., VIII (16 January 1869), 188.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Two Ogres	Fun, n.s., VIII (23 January 1869), 204.	MBB, Ellis
Mister William	Fun, n.s., VIII (6 February 1869), 218. No. 60.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Martinet	Fun, n.s., VIII (13 February 1869), 228. No. 61.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The King of Canoodle-Dum	Fun, n.s., VIII (20 February 1869), 238-239. No. 62.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
First Love	Fun, n.s., VIII (27 February 1869), 248. No. 63.	MBB, Ellis
The Haughty Actor	Fun, n.s., IX (27 March 1869), 31. No. 64.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Two Majors	Fun, n.s., IX (3 April 1869), 41. No. 65.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Three Bohemian Ones	Fun, n.s., IX (10 April 1869), 51. No. 66.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
The Policeman's Beard	Fun, n.s., IX (1 May 1869), 75. No. 67.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
The Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo Again	Fun, n.s., IX (8 May 1869), 85. No. 68.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
A Worm Will Turn	Fun, n.s., IX (15 May 1869), 104. No. 69.	MBB, Ellis
The Mystic Selvagee	Fun, n.s., IX (22 May 1869), 112. No. 70.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
Emily, John, James, and I	Fun, n.s., IX (29 May 1869), 115. No. 71.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Ghost to his Ladye Love	Fun, n.s., IX (14 August 1869), 223.	Ellis
Prince Il Baleine	Fun, n.s., IX (28 August 1869), 253. No. 72.	D&G, Searle, Ellis
The Way of Wooing	Fun, n.s., X (11 September 1869), 13. No. 73.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Scornful Colonel	Fun, n.s., X (25 September 1869), 31. No. 74.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
The Variable Baby	Fun, n.s., X (9 October 1869), 51. No. 75.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
The Ladies of the Lea	Fun, n.s., X (30 October 1869), 75. No. 76.	Goldberg, Searle, Ellis
Hongree and Mahry	Fun, n.s., X (20 November 1869), 105. No. 77.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
Etiquette	The Graphic, I (25 December 1869, Christmas Number), 6-7.	50BB, Ellis
The Reverend Simon Magnus	Fun, n.s., X (5 February 1870), 215. No. 78.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
My Dream	Fun, n.s., XI (19 March 1870), 15. No. 79.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
Damon v. Pythias	Fun, n.s., XI (26 March 1870), 31. No. 80.	MBB, Ellis
The Bumboat Woman's Story	Fun, n.s., XI (9 April 1870), 45. No. 81.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Fairy Curate	Fun, n.s., XII (23 July 1870), 32-33. No. 82.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
Phrenology	Fun, n.s., XII (6 August 1870), 45. No. 83.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Perils of Invisibility	Fun, n.s., XII (20 August 1870), 65. No. 84.	MBB, 50BB, Ellis
The Wise Policeman	Fun, n.s., XII (22 October 1870), 156. No. 85.	Ellis
A Drop of Pantomime Water	The Graphic, II, 25 December 1870, Christmas Number, 20.	Ellis
Old Paul and Old Tim	Fun, n.s., XIII (28 January 1871), 35. No. 86.	MBB, Ellis
"Eheu! Fugaces"	The Dark Blue, III (April 1872), 142-143.	Searle, Ellis
Jester James	Time, I (April 1879), 54-57.	Ellis
The Policeman's Story	Time, I (May 1879), 166-168.	Ellis
The Thief's Apology	Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News was an English weekly magazine founded in 1874 and published in London. In 1945 it changed its name to the Sport and Country, and in 1957 to the Farm and Country, before closing in 1970.... , XXII (6 December 1884), "Holly Leaves" (Christmas number), 267.	Ellis
The King and the Stroller	The Queen's Christmas Carol: An Anthology of Poems, Stories, Essays, Drawings and Music by British Authors, Artists and Composers (London: The Daily Mail, 1905), 80-81.	Ellis

External links

• Introduction to the Bab Ballads
• Alphabetical list by title
• Alphabetical list by first line