The research on European ballad prints is currently entering into a very exciting phase. For years, these ephemeral yet long-lived leaflets have been lying uncatalogued in the dustiest corners of the archives. Now, collections of ballad prints are being digitized in country after country, and the volume of researchis growing. For the field to really take off, however, we must publish in English. This is one reason why the anthology Czech Broadside Ballads is such a welcomework of scholarship.
In 21 chapters written by 27 authors, the anthology deals with topics ranging from the sixteenth-century origins of printed ballads to the cordel prints of twentieth-century Brazil. It is not possible to do justice to all of the texts in a single review, but I attempt to identify the volume’s most significant results, point out a few weaknesses, and discuss the implications for further research. My perspective is that of a historian specializing in Scandinavian printed ballads (in Swedish, skillingtryck).