Tuesday, August 11, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
18th Century
Eighteenth-century English: the ballad revival of Percy's Reliques and Defoe's history of the Devil.
✦ ─── ⟐ ─── ✦
Texts
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry — Volume 1The first of three volumes of Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) — Chevy Chase, Otterbourne, and the heroic border ballads, ballads that illustrate Shakespeare, and Percy's essays on the ancient minstrels and the English stage, in Henry B. Wheatley's annotated edition of 1885.Reliques of Ancient English Poetry — Volume 2The second of three volumes of Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) — from Richard of Almaigne and the Not-Browne Mayd through Sir Andrew Barton, Mary Ambree, the mad songs, and Lilli Burlero, with Percy's essay on the alliterative metre of Piers Plowman, in Henry B. Wheatley's annotated edition of 1885.Reliques of Ancient English Poetry — Volume 3The third of three volumes of Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) — the Arthurian ballads, Glasgerion, Child Waters, the fairy songs, and the legends of St. George, with Percy's essay on the ancient metrical romances and the glossary to all three volumes, in Henry B. Wheatley's annotated edition of 1885.The History of the Devil — Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe's 1726 History of the Devil in both parts — a satirical-serious account of Satan's career from the fall of the angels to the witchcraft and superstition of Defoe's own day, standing between the old demonology and Enlightenment skepticism.