The Ingoldsby Legends (1869)

S$130.00

The Ingoldsby Legends (1869)

S$130.00

Title: The Ingoldsby Legends

Author: Thomas Ingoldsby

Publisher: Richard Bentley, 1869.

Condition: Full leather, morocco. Good. Raised bands to spine, gilt to all edges. Hinge slightly rubbed on front cover. Marbled edges. Slight foxing to text. With engraved plates. 7″ by 4.5″.

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The Ingoldsby Legends is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham.

The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany and later in New Monthly Magazine. The legends were illustrated by John Leech and George Cruikshank. They proved immensely popular and were compiled into books published in 1840, 1842 and 1847 by Richard Bentley. They remained popular during the 19th century but have since become little known. An omnibus edition was published in 1879: The Ingoldsby Legends; or Mirth and marvels.

As a priest of the Chapel Royal, Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, such as the “hand of glory”, they are mostly deliberately humorous parodies or pastiches of medieval folklore and poetry.

The collection contains one of the earliest transcriptions of the song A Franklyn’s Dogge, an early version of the modern children’s song Bingo. Other than this, the best-known poem of the collection is the Jackdaw of Rheims about a jackdaw who steals a cardinal’s ring and is made a saint.