The Peace Egg Book: an Anglo-Irish chapbook connection discovered - Research article: focus on traditional drama

Notes

[1] One exception is the study of the "The Peace Egg Chapbooks in Scotland ..." (Preston et al. 1976b).

[2] Our thanks go to the writers Andrea and David Spalding of Pender Island, British Columbia, for bringing this chapbook to our attention. We also thank Lori McLeod of the Lillian H. Smith Branch of Toronto Public Library where the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books is housed for kindly supplying us with copies of the chapbook, making arrangements for us to reproduce it, and for patiently answering our questions. We also owe thanks to the librarians of the Harris Public Library, Preston, and to Peter Millington who helped us to locate various references, John Moulden for his input on Irish broadside and chapbook printers, David Temperley who helped us to follow the fortunes of the collection of Carr chapbooks referred to in note three and Nick Mansfield who provided information on military costumes. Finally our thanks must go to Martha Scott, Acting Head of the Osborne Collection, who graciously granted us permission to reproduce the chapbook.

[3] Two surviving examples of this chapbook are known (see Appendix 2).

[4] Regrettably, the current whereabouts of only one other confirmed example of a chapbook by Robert Carr of Manchester is known, Mary Johnson "Printed for R. Carr, Hanover-st, Manchester" (twelve pages) (copy in the Paul Smith Collection). Nonetheless, other tantalising references exist, such as the following collection of twenty-three titles by an R. Carr (address unspecified) that were sold at a Sotheby's auction in 1974:

   Billy Best's Visit to the Fair; The Fairy and the Farmer; The
   History of Beasts; The History of Dame Crump; The History of Little
   Jane; The History of Lucy Gray; History of Mary Ann; Jack Sprat and
   his Cat; Jacky Dandy; The Life and Death of Little Jenny Wren; The
   Life of Little Jack Sprat; The Little Primer; My Mother; Nursery
   Rhymes; Paul Pry's Magic Lantern; Red Riding Hood; The Remarkable
   Life of Jack and Jill; Reward of Kindness; Riddle Book; Songs for
   Little Children; Sports and Pastimes; Tom Tucker; The Tragical
   Death of an Apple Pie. [23 vol. in I, wood-engraved illustrations,
   those on the outer pages coloured by hand, calf gilt. 32mo R. Carr,
   c. 1840] (Sotheby and Co. 1974, 85: Lot 404).

Unfortunately, it has been impossible to verify whether these items were in any way connected with Robert Carr of Manchester. The collection was purchased by Blackwell's of Oxford, subsequently sold by them to an unnamed buyer, and its present whereabouts is unknown.

[5] The Geoffrey R. Axon collection of Manchester broadsides was owned by the grandson of the well-known Manchester antiquarian, William Ernest Armytage Axon ("Lynx-Eye Junior" 1893; Walmsley 1964), who was himself an authority on street literature (Axon 1883a; 1883b). On the death of G. R. Axon in 1961, the collection was given to the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society by his son. Subsequently, the Society placed the collection on permanent loan to Chetham's Library in Manchester (Cass 2001a).