In recent years, the assumption that traditional songs originated from a primarily oral tradition has been challenged by research into 'street literature'. Not only are some traditional singers known to have learned songs from printed sources, but most of the songs were composed by professional writers.

1: Introduction; 2: Was There Really a ‘Mass Extinction of Old Ballads' in the Romantic Period?; 3: Birmingham Broadsides and Oral Tradition; 4: The Newcastle Song Chapbooks; 5: Forgotten Broadsides and the Song Tradition of the Scots Travellers; 6: Welsh Balladry and Literacy; 7: Ballads and Ballad Singers: Samuel Lover's Tour of Dublin in 1830; 8: Henry J. Wehman and Cheap Print in Late Nineteenth-Century America; 9: ‘I'd have you to buy it and learn it': Sabine Baring-Gould, his Fellow Collectors, and Street Literature; 10: The Popular Ballad and the Book Trade: ‘Bateman's Tragedy' versus ‘The Demon Lover’; 11: Mediating Maria Marten: Comparative and Contextual Studies of the Red Barn Ballads; 12: ‘Old Brown's Daughter': Re-contextualizing a ‘Locally’ Composed Newfoundland Folk Song

Shortlisted for the 2015 Katherine Briggs Folklore Award. ’Here is a very important book for anyone who is interested in the origins and evolution of folk song. ...essential if you have any interest in this subject.’ English Dance and Song Magazine ’This is a well-balanced collection, exhibiting throughout the results of careful research, drawing considered conclusions. Ballad studies are thriving, and it is a welcome addition to the field.’ Folk Music Journal 'The essays are detailed and informative - I learned a lot from them ... Street Ballads takes a large step beyond the pieties of authenticity that have often constrained scholarship on ballads, and it provides a model for future investigations into the complex histories of a tantalising cultural form.' SHARP News