Songs of Charles Dibdin; With a Memoir

Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) was an English composer, musician, dramatist, novelist, singer and actor.  With over 600 songs to his name, for many of which he wrote both the lyrics and the music and performed them himself, he was in his time the most prolific English singer-songwriter.  He is best known as the composer of “Tom Bowling” (inluded herein), one of his many sea songs, a song which later was used as the title of a three-volume novel by Captain Frederick Chamier in 1841.

But Dibdin was more than just a composer and singer.  His songs were so popular with England’s sailors and so valuable in keeping up their morale that the government in 1803 offered him an official pension of £200 a year to abandon his professional performances and dedicate himself to writing and performing “war songs” to keep up the ferment of popular feeling against France.  Which probably allows one to label him an official propagandist.

This book, compiled by his son Thomas Dibdin, comprises 154 songs by Charles Dibdin interspersed with 13 illustrations by the famous George Cruikshank, followed by 45 songs written by his sons Thomas and Charles, Jr., followed in turn by 47 national songs of the period that Thomas Dibdin thought especially good.  Most of these 246 songs pertain to the naval life, some are about soldiers instead of sailors, and a few celebrate English patriotism in general.

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