Friendship, Cosmopolitan Connections and Late Victorian Socialist Songbook Culture

Kate Bowan

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    4 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    On 27 August 1887, utopian socialist Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) issued a call in the Socialist League's Commonweal for contributions from readers towards the socialist songbook he was in the process of preparing. He wanted 'good words matched to good tunes' and added a further remark that songs 'in actual use among Socialist bodies will be specially welcome'. In his otherwise bleak and depressing existence in Sheffield's grim industrial surrounds, Carpenter gained creative succour from the process of compiling a collection of songs he would christen Chants of Labour. 'It was a queer experience', Carpenter recalled, 'collecting these songs of hope and enthusiasm...in the midst of these gloomy and discordant conditions'. Published in 1888, Chants of Labour was an immediate success and determined in large part the contents of the subsequent generation of socialist songbooks.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationCheap Print and Popular Song in the Nineteenth Century
    EditorsPaul Watt, Derek B. Scott, and Patrick Spedding
    Place of PublicationUK
    PublisherCambridge University Press
    Pages91 - 111
    Volume1
    Edition1st
    ISBN (Print)1107159911
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

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