Francis James Child (1825-1896) was an American scholar. He was the Professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University until 1876 when he was named Harvard’s first Professor of English.

Child was best known for his publication of traditional ballads. Published in five editions between 1882-1889, the original ten-part study of the Ballad collection became The English and Scottish Popular Ballads and was the major contributor to the study of folk music in the English language. The list of ballads reached a total 305 and included such titles as: “King Orfeo”, “The Marriage of Sir Gawain”, “A True Tale of Robin Hood”, “The Lass of Roch Royal”, and “The Lass of Aughrim”.

The preservation of the oral ballad tradition was Child’s goal. As he published the first editions of the then 8 volume collection, he became more ambitious turning the project into a comprehensive collection of all the known Scottish and English ballads as well as all of their American and Canadian variations. Child included written ballads that were tracked down, re-edited, and translated by Child himself, as well as versions of ballads that had survived solely within an oral tradition that had only been written down for his collection.

The book was very popular during this time period because of the ballad revival. Many British writers of the time revived these collections because “these ballads were remnants of an earlier stage in the nation’s literature and history, and exemplified an untainted, untutored genius of the English people” (Dugnew 71). Reading and commenting upon these ballads became a trend and popularized the ballad form. Child capitalized on this trend with his extensive collection.

Free e-texts, in different volumes and formats of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads can be found online at Project Gutenberg.

Work Cited:

Burgess, John. “Francis James Child: Brief life of a Victorian enthusiast: 1825-1896.” Harvard Magazine. Cambridge: 2006.

Dugaw, Dianne. “The Popular Marketing of "Old Ballads”: The Ballad Revival and Eighteenth-Century Antiquarianism Reconsidered.“ Eighteenth-Century Studies 21.1 (1987): 71-90. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.

Francis James Child

—
Harvard Magazine

Francis James Child, A.B. 1846, was a model of nineteenth-century academic achievement. Named Harvard's Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at 26, he was one of his century's leading Chaucer scholars and received honorary degrees from his alma mater, Columbia, and Göttingen. His close friends included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry and William James, and Charles Eliot Norton.