The Percy Society was a British book-club

Victorian societies for text publication

Victorian societies for text publication were learned societies, in the United Kingdom of the nineteenth century, existing principally or having as a main function to produce scholarly editions of old works of historical or literary interest...

. It was founded in 1840 and collapsed in 1852.

It was a scholarly collective, aimed at publishing limited-edition books of rare poems and songs. The president was Lady Braybrooke, and the twelve founding members of the committee included John Payne Collier

John Payne Collier

John Payne Collier , English Shakespearian critic and forger, was born in London.-Reporter and solicitor:...

, Thomas Crofton Croker

Thomas Crofton Croker

Thomas Crofton Croker was an Irish antiquary, born at Cork. For some years, he held a position in the Admiralty, where his distant relative, John Wilson Croker, was his superior....

, Thomas Wright, James Orchard Halliwell (treasurer), Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay was a Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer.-Life:Charles Mackay was born in Perth, Scotland. His father was by turns a naval officer and a foot soldier; his mother died shortly after his birth. Charles was educated at the Caledonian Asylum, London, and at Brussels, but spent...

, Edward Francis Rimbault

Edward Francis Rimbault

Edward Francis Rimbault , English organist and author. Some of his historical musical anthologies were published by the Percy Society.*Co-founded the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1840....

 (secretary) and William Chappell. Later members included William Sandys

William B. Sandys

William B. Sandys , was an English solicitor, member of the Percy Society, fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and remembered for his publication Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern , a collection of seasonal carols that Sandys had gathered and also apparently improvised...

, and Robert Bell

Robert Bell (writer)

Robert Bell was an Irish man of letters.Bell was born at Cork, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was one of the founders of the Dublin Historical Society...

.

They took care to print the text exactly as given in their sources. This was in contrast to their main inspiration, Thomas Percy, who often polished up vernacular text by adding lines or merging different incomplete versions. Like Percy, they omitted obscene songs and verses. Unlike Percy they tried to find the tunes to songs. John Payne Collier founded the Shakespeare Society in 1841.

Sources

The members of the Percy Society drew on manuscripts and printed ephemera in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

, the Ashmolean Museum

Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...

, the Pepys collection (Cambridge), The Douce collection (Oxford), and their own private collections. The committee would decide on the theme of the next publication, and send out the bound volumes to their subscription list. All members of the society were enthusiasts of Elizabethan drama. The society grew out of the Roxburghe Club

Roxburghe Club

The Roxburghe Club was formed on 17 June 1812 by leading bibliophiles, at the time the library of the Duke of Roxburghe was auctioned. It took 45 days to sell the entire collection. The first edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, printed by Chrisopher Valdarfer of Venice in 1471, was sold to the...

. As well as reprinting so-called "Garlands" (collections of songs), they created their own compilations related to a particular region of Britain, or to a single subject such as Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

. There were 90 small publications and 31 larger volumes called "Early English Poetry, Ballads and Popular Literature".

The legacy

In 1868 the Ballad Society was formed to do similar work, but was more focused on reprinting folksongs.

Of all the Percy Society publications, the ones that have been most frequently in print recently are the Irish folklore books by Thomas Crofton Croker. James Orchard Halliwell sold his personal collection of ballads, which became known as the Euing Collection, in the University of Glasgow. William Sandys' landmark volume "Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern" (1833) contained several carols that are still sung every year in churches in Britain. The "Crow Collection" at the University of Kent at Canterbury has an almost complete collection of Percy Society publications.

Early English Poetry, Ballads and Popular Literature

Vol.	Title	Year	Link
2	A selection from the minor poems of Lydgate / Early naval ballads of England / A search for money, by William Rowley / The mad pranks and merry jests of Robin Goodfellow	1840	http://books.google.com/books?id=ktYKAAAAYAAJ
17	Scottish traditional versions of ancient ballads / Ancient poems, ballads and songs	1846	http://books.google.com/books?id=8NMKAAAAYAAJ
21	Popular songs, illustrative of the French invasions of Ireland	1847	http://books.google.com/books?id=u7oQAAAAYAAJ
28	An Anglo-Saxon passion of Saint George / A poem on the times of Edward II Edward II of England Edward II , called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed by his wife Isabella in January 1327. He was the sixth Plantagenet king, in a line that began with the reign of Henry II... . / The Poems of William de Shoreham / The triall of treasure	1851	http://books.google.com/books?id=f80KAAAAYAAJ
29	Notices of fugitive tracts and chap-books Chapbook A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...  / The man in the Moone / The use of dice-play / The loyal garland / Poems and songs on the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham	1851 George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover, of King James I of England. Despite a very patchy political and military record, he remained at the height of royal favour for the first two years of the reign of Charles I, until he was assassinated...	http://books.google.com/books?id=2NsKAAAAYAAJ

External references

• James Orchard Halliwell
• Crocker's masque "Recollections of Old Christmas"
• The Crow Collection