While visiting a friend, the writer and cleric Thomas Percy (1729-1811) noticed a neglected folio whose pages were being used by the maids to light the fire. Upon inspection, this manuscript was found to be a seventeenth-century collection of historical ballads. Following this discovery, Percy collected further ballads and songs from a number of sources, which he published in this three-volume work in 1765, although ultimately only a quarter of the texts he presented came from that original manuscript. Although this work proved to be incredibly popular, Percy's idiosyncratic editorial practices also received much criticism. The collection centres on historical ballads and romances, demonstrating the development of language, customs and traditions, to which Percy added contemporary ballads for his readers' enjoyment. Volume 1 contains texts such as 'The Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase' and 'The Jew's Daughter', as well as ballads which influenced or illuminate the work of Shakespeare.

While visiting a friend, the writer and cleric Thomas Percy (1729-1811) noticed a neglected folio whose pages were being used by the maids to light the fire. Upon inspection, this manuscript was found to be a seventeenth-century collection of historical ballads. Following this discovery, Percy collected further ballads and songs from a number of sources, which he published in this three-volume work in 1765, although ultimately only a quarter of the texts he presented came from that original manuscript. Although this work proved to be incredibly popular, Percy's idiosyncratic editorial practices also received much criticism. The collection centres on historical ballads and romances, demonstrating the development of language, customs and traditions, to which Percy added contemporary ballads for his readers' enjoyment. Volume 2 includes a rondel which Percy ascribes to Chaucer, as well as verses purported to be by Queen Elizabeth I and King Charles I.

While visiting a friend, the writer and cleric Thomas Percy (1729-1811) noticed a neglected folio whose pages were being used by the maids to light the fire. Upon inspection, this manuscript was found to be a seventeenth-century collection of historical ballads. Following this discovery, Percy collected further ballads and songs from a number of sources, which he published in this three-volume work in 1765, although ultimately only a quarter of the texts he presented came from that original manuscript. Although this work proved to be incredibly popular, Percy's idiosyncratic editorial practices also received much criticism. The collection centres on historical ballads and romances, demonstrating the development of language, customs and traditions, to which Percy added contemporary ballads for his readers' enjoyment. Volume 3 includes ballads of Sir Gawain, King Arthur and St George and the Dragon, and contains the additions and corrections to all three volumes.

Thomas Percy was the first serious translator of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry into English. He published his Five Pieces of Runic Poetry in London in 1763 and in 1770 published his translation of Mallet's very influential work on early Scandinavian literature and culture as Northern Antiquities (with extensive annotations and additions by Percy himself). In publishing Five Pieces, Percy was influenced by the success of Macpherson's first volume of Ossian poetry (1760) and his own wide-ranging interest in ancient, especially 'gothic' poetry. Five Pieces had a mixed reception and was never republished as a separate work, but reappeared as an appendix to the second edn. of Northern Antiquities. Nevertheless, it was a seminal work in the history of reception and understanding of Old Norse poetry in Britain and it also has more general significance in our understanding of the development of the discipline of Old Norse-Icelandic studies. This work makes available to the modern scholarly community the work of one of the pioneers of the discipline and produces in easily accessible format a text that is currently only available as a rare book. The study comprises a facsimile of the 1763 edition, with facing-page notes to allow the modern reader to situate Percy's work in its intellectual context, together with an introduction on Percy himself, his work on Old Norse-Icelandic studies, and the contemporary context of the reception of Old Norse poetry in Britain (and to some extent in the rest of Europe). In addition, this study publishes eight other poetic translations (one from Old English and the others from Old Icelandic) that Percy completed about the same time as the translations now in Five Pieces of Runic Poetry, but did not then publish, due to the restrictions of contemporary tolerance for demanding or difficult 'ancient' poetry. This publication reveals his full range as a translator for the first time.

Excerpt from Thomas Percy Und William Shenstone: Ein Briefwechsel Aus Der Entstehungszeit Der Reliques of Ancient English Poetry Damals nannte Percy's Mitarbeiter und Korrespondent Ro bert Anderson, der Herausgeber der British Poets, in einem Nachruf auf den dahingegangenen Freund die Religues of Ancient English Poetry 'a work which constitutes an era in the history of English literature in the eighteenth und auch vor der strengen Kritik der neuesten Forschung ist diese hohe Bewertung zu vollem Rechte bestehen geblieben. Die ersten Worte der Vorrede, durch die Sir George Douglas Miss Gaussen's gerade veroffentlichter percy-biographie 2) seinen Segen erteilt, lauten: 'there are few modern books to which the much-abused epithet of 'epochmaking' is more applicable than to Bishop Percy's 'reliques' An ahnlich lautenden Urteilen von andern, berufensten Seiten ist kein Mangelz3) Wir erkennen riickschauend in den Religues eine befreiende Tat von augenblicklich zundender Wirkung, die sie Young's Sendschreiben uber Originalkomposition und Mac pherson's Ossianischen Gedichten, Chatterton's Traumen vom Mittelalter und Horace Walpole's groteskem Schauerroman vom Schlosse von Otranto neben oder fiberordnet. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.