2 posts tagged with BushrangerBallads.
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New book: 20 execution songs from Victorian London.

PlanetSlade's fourth book is out today. It collects all my Gallows Ballads and Bushranger Ballads essays into this volume, and added some bonus material. Sold at chaotic public hangings, these lurid songs described the condemned man’s crime and warned spectators not to follow his example. Many claimed to set out the killer’s own confession – his “last goodnight” – placing these verses atop their own blood-soaked account of exactly what he’d done. Celebrity hangings, like that of Frederick and Maria Manning in 1849, produced many rival ballad sheets and total sales of well over two million copies [more inside]
posted by Paul Slade on Feb 6, 2024 - 0 comments

The True Crime stories behind Wild Colonial Boy & other Australian ballads

I've just posted the first three of my Bushranger Ballads song essays, telling the True Crime stories behind Bold Jack Donohoe, The Wild Colonial Boy and The Death of Peter Clark. These songs belong to a genre of 19th century Australian ballads celebrating the colony's cheekiest and most successful highwaymen. The new essays are a PlanetSlade Murder Ballads Production, and join last September's background essay on bushranger songs which we've discussed previously. [more inside]
posted by Paul Slade on May 1, 2019 - 0 comments

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