These essays cover relevant topics such as paper making, the printing process, black-letter print and ballad ornament, popular ballad authors (such as Martin Parker), ballad music, and ballad measure. Each essay is meant to familiarize the reader with issues surrounding the cultural production of as well as the instrumentation behind the ballad phenomenon in Early Modern England. Read together, they paint a picture of the forces that gave rise to the popularity of the ballad of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We hope to add more essays soon on the ways in which the ballad changed during the eighteenth century as the availability and cost of other printed material challenged the ballad’s print supremacy.

"Ballad Measure" by William Gahan

"Ballad Music" by Tassie Gniady

"Black-Letter Print" by Gerald Egan

"Woodcuts, Copper Engravings, and Cries" by Simone Chess

"Papermaking" by Gerald Egan

"Printing Practices" by Kris McAbee and Jessica C. Murphy

"The Stationers' Company and the Ballad Partners" by Paxton Hehmeyer

"Developments in the Broadside Ballad," by Paxton Hehmeyer

"Chapbook Trade" by Eric Nebeker