By Keith McKenry. Australia’s Lost Folk Songs is number 25 in the longstanding series of Australian Folklore Occasional Papers. It is dedicated to the memory of Ron Edwards, founder of the Rams Skull Press and Australia’s most prolific collector of folk songs and bush craft, who died while the book was being prepared for printing. Happily, the book is graced by Ron’s delightful illustrations. He was a giant in the field of Australian folklore.

Originally published in 1973 this collection soon sold out and has since been unavailable. These ballads show the Australian male’s worst side in a humorous light. This is an important work in Australian folklore, and the material was mainly collected in north Queensland. For folklore students. 56 pages, 39 ballads each with notes.

A book dealing with the folksong of the same name, and based on the research of the late Bob Mitchell. Nicely illustrated with 20 sketches by Ron Edwards. 53 pages.

Only a few copies of this item left. From a 1989 Earthwatch collecting trip in north Queensland. Contains bush crafts, yarns, folk medicine and ballads. 136 pages.

Two Wild Colonial Boys? A search for connections between two bushranging songs.

Delightful collection of yarns mainly from north Queensland’s outback. They provide a remarkable insight into the lives of bushies. Includes a chapter on the circumstances leading to the creation of bushyarns. Hard cover edition of 250 pages.

By noted folklorist Wendy Lowenstein, who was the main contributor to the first major study of Australian children’s play rhymes Cinderella Dressed in Yella. Find out what those little angels really chant when no adults are near! 71 pages.

Important collection of bawdy ballads collected by folklorist Brad Tate. 74 pages, 45 items.

Great old bush verse from the early part of the century. 30 of the most famous recitations originally published in the Bowyang Reciters during the 1930s. 66 pages, 23 illustrations.

Please read the notes to The Convict Maid. The second slightly smaller part of the collection, though still containing plenty of important ballads. Contains some important convict ballads. 88 pages, many facsimile broadsides.

Three bawdy songsters representing different facets of society – L.I.T’s Songbook (by telephone linesmen, 1971), Songs My Mother Taught Me, (by Royal Australian Air Force members, 1951), and Queensland University Hockey Club Songbook (UQ men’s hockey team, c.1960 – with full notes and other known versions of some songs detailed at the back of the book. Australian Folklore – Occasional Paper No.24. 104 songs, 90 pages, 210x295mm.