PIGOT (Richard Greville), lyrics & LEE (David and Alexander), music.

Songs for the Army.

No. 1 [No more published].

Folio. Some leaves slightly stained, a little browned overall with some associated brittleness and edge chipping, a few old repairs to the fore-edges, but otherwise very good in the publisher’s red skiver-backed diced cloth boards with red skiver patch label to the upper board with title and large device of the globe within sun-rays and the motto “armis et ingenio”, somewhat rubbed at the extremities, head- and tail-cap repaired, but not unattractive. 16pp., 8pp., [ii], 6pp., [ii], 6pp., [ii], 8pp., [ii], 6pp., [ii], 8pp., [ii], 6pp., [ii], 8pp., [ii], 8pp., [ii], 10pp. To be had of the Author and Publisher… and of the Principal Music Sellers, 1841.

£350.00

Scarce, not recorded in NSTC, BL has a copy under David Lee as composer, no copies on OCLC or RLIN.

“The Author of the following “Songs for the Army”, after a service of some years in the Imperial Hungarian Hussars, felt, upon his return to England, the total want of those Soul-stirring incentives to National Military Glory, which he had found to exist in almost all the Continental regiments… our gallant regiments… possessed no Songs to perpetuate that individual prowess which has immortalized the Numbers of their several corps, no songs which they might term their own… “ [From the author’s introduction.]

The first 16pp. have the lyrics to the ten songs, the following pages have the lyrics and scores for them, each with an individual engraved title page, and each with the price of 2/-. The titles are “The Guards”; “Song for the Mess”, “The Hussar”, “The Rifles”; “Sons of the Highlander…”; “The Fighting Brigade”; “The Eighty-Seventh Foot”; “The Regiment”; “The Scots Greys”; and “My Own Brown Bess”.

This copy “authenticated” with Pigot’s signature on the general title page.

Stock No.
22656