This story, 'Come Lasses And Lads', was originally published in 1884 as one of Randolph Caldecott's sixteen 'Picture Books'. These were published in pairs each Christmas from 1877 until Caldecott's death in 1886. Randolph Caldecott (1846 – 1886) was one of the most important British illustrators of the Victorian period. He transformed the world of decorated children’s books, with his delicate yet considered drawings and imaginative subject choices. Caldecott selected all the stories and rhymes he illustrated (and occasionally wrote) and frequently added to the stories himself. His delightful style and humour can still be enjoyed by young and old alike. Pook Press celebrates the great ‘Golden Age of llustration‘ in children’s literature – a period of unparalleled excellence in book illustration. We publish rare and vintage classic illustrated books, in high-quality colour editions, so that the masterful artwork and story-telling can continue to delight both young and old.

"See the blazing Yule before us..." This is just one of the many ancient British folk songs we all know and love. Other tunes and symbols that tug on our memories have similar historical roots, hearkening back to a shared Pagan past. These dances, songs, and theatrical plays in the English folk tradition are now little known to most of the modern Pagan community. Reviving these vital traditions can bring new life to Renaissance festivals, neopagan rituals, and community events. Introducing the lively music and homegrown entertainments of times long past, this descriptive how-to is designed for twenty-first-century joviality. The songs, dances, and plays of old are explained in their mythical, seasonal, and historical significance and outlined for easy reenactment. Simple-to-follow instructions detail six dances including the popular Abbots Bromley Horn dance, six full scripts for dramatic performances of Mummer's Plays (folk plays of death and rebirth), and over thirty songs with lyrics and music. Kick up your heels, hold high your skirts, and make merry the year through.

So strongly associated is the Salvation Army with its modern mission of service that its colorful history as a religious movement is often overlooked. In telling the story of the organization in America, Lillian Taiz traces its evolution from a working-class, evangelical religion to a movement that emphasized service as the path to salvation. When the Salvation Army crossed the Atlantic from Britain in 1879, it immediately began to adapt its religious culture to its new American setting. The group found its constituency among young, working-class men and women who were attracted to its intensely experiential religious culture, which combined a frontier-camp-meeting style with working-class forms of popular culture modeled on the saloon and theater. In the hands of these new recruits, the Salvation Army developed a remarkably democratic internal culture. By the turn of the century, though, as the Army increasingly attempted to attract souls by addressing the physical needs of the masses, the group began to turn away from boisterous religious expression toward a more "refined" religious culture and a more centrally controlled bureaucratic structure. Placing her focus on the membership of the Salvation Army and its transformation as an organization within the broader context of literature on class, labor, and women's history, Taiz sheds new light on the character of American working-class culture and religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Music in the Women's Institute has become stereotyped by the ritualistic singing of Jerusalem at monthly meetings. Indeed, Jerusalem has had an important role within the organization, and provides a valuable means within which to assess the organization's relationship with women's suffrage and the importance of rurality in the Women's Institute's identity. However, this book looks beyond Jerusalem by examining the full range of music making within the organization and locates its significance within a wider historical-cultural context. The Institute's promotion of conducting - a regular part of its musical activity since the 1930s - is discussed within the context of embodying overtly feminist sentiments. Lorna Gibson concludes that a redefinition of the term 'feminism' is needed and the concept of 'gendered spheres' of conducting provides a useful means of understanding the Institute's policy. The organization's promotion of folk song is also examined and reveals the Institute's contribution to the Folk Revival, as well as providing a valuable context within which to understand the National Federation's first music commission, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (1950). This work, and the Institute's second commission, Malcolm Williamson's The Brilliant and the Dark (1969), are examined with the context of the organization's music policy. In addition to discussing the background to the works, issues of critical reception are addressed. The book concludes with an Epilogue about the National Society Choir (later known as the Avalon Singers), which tested the organization's commitment to amateur music making. The book is the result of meticulous work undertaken in the archives of the National Federation, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the V&A archives, the Britten-Pears Library, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Library, the Women's Library and the Newspaper Library.

Tales of highway robbery terrified many of the Cornish to the extent that men travelling to London on business often wrote their wills as they believed they were unlikely to return safely. This volume contains three of Q's tales of highway robbery. The Statement of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman tells the tale of his trial for murder and the consequences; whilst The Two Householders recounts Gabriel Foot's discovery of a mysterious mansion at night; and The Man Behind The Curtain relates the consequences on a family of a disinherited heir. All three also provide enjoyable insights in Cornish etiquette and traditions which are now long forgotten. Now surpassed in fame as a writer by his daughter's best friend, Daphne du Maurier, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was the pre-eminent Cornish writer of Victorian and Edwardian times and founder of the Cambridge University school of English Literature. He is of particular interest since his fiction was very often based on factual events long passed from memory.