Scope and Content

The present collection includes engraved sheet music of the early and mid-nineteenth century which has been bound (evidently by the original purchasers of the music) into marbled board covers with leather spines and corners; there are nineteen volumes, occupying a little over two linear feet. Most (or all) seem to represent collections made by young ladies, either as a finishing school requirement and/or as collections of music for their instrument of choice (or voice). All volumes seem to have been created ladies from Britain or Scotland. At this point it is no longer known by whom these volumes were donated, or how they reached the United States; they were transferred to the USC Music Library, probably in the 1970s, from USC's main library Special Collections. The music itself is eclectic in geographic range, including music from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, and there is strong emphasis on the popular domestic choices for music-making: voice, pianoforte, and harp (the latter an instrument which, at least in terms of Britain, seems to have been unfairly neglected by modern scholarship as in important home instrument during this period).

The number of pages refers to the pages actually numbered in the music, not to the total number of pages (numbered and unnumbered both). "No title page" does not mean that a title page is missing, but that title information is on the first page of music.

Other bound print collections (currently in process) in the USC Music Library Special Collections include American musical prints of the nineteenth century and reductions of popular symphonies for chamber ensembles.