Item #List1615 Old Folks at Home Songster. Minstrel Songsters, Steven Foster, Christy’s Minstrels.

Old Folks at Home Songster.

New York: Fisher and Brothers, 1851. 16mo, wraps, unpaginated. A few small holes to front wrap, fraying to spine, slight tanning, very good plus overall with a tight binding and bright contents. Very Good. Item #List1615

An uncommon songster with woodcut illustrations published in 1851, marking the likely first appearance of “Old Folks at Home” in digest form. We are unable to establish priority between this songster and the Firth, Pond and Co. sheet music edition of the title, as both were published in 1851. The listing for “Old Folks at Home” contains a note at the introduction that Fisher has the “sole and exclusive permission to publish the words” to the song from Firth, Pond and Co. The remainder of the songster includes many songs credited to Christy’s Minstrels, along with Jim Sanford, S.S. Steele, Lucy Long, Old Dan Tucker, Alen Clark, and F. McDermott. These are likely early digest form printings of many of these songs, though dating is difficult due to other Christy’s songsters from the 1850s being undated. OCLC locates four copies.

Price: $375.00

See all items in Music