Excerpt from The Common-Place Book of Ancient and Modern Ballad and Metrical Legendary Tales: An Original Selection, Including Many Never Before Published To the lovers of poetry, no species of it is more interesting than the Ballad and Legendary Tale we are familiar with the style from our infancy, and the rhymes of the most popular among them are dear to us as household words. Who does not recollect; with emotions of pleasure, The Babes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This collection of essays offers insights into the ways in which eighteenth-century novels have been adapted and appropriated by later writers. It will be of interest to students of the rise of the novel, interdisciplinary approaches to literature, and the developing field of adaptation studies.