The Transit of 'Small, Merry' Anglo-American Culture: Sir John Barley-Corne and Sir Richard Rum (And Captain Whiskey).

Corrects the assumption that Americans did not read or have access to cheap secular literature in the colonial period. Traces the publishing history of "The Indictment and Trial of Sir Richard Rum" (1724), back to the English folk tune "The Ballad of John Barley-Corne." Follows the history of that broadside ballad from 1624 to 1724 as it changed from oral tradition to printed book. By 1724 it had been printed in America and plagiarized as the Richard Rum volume; the ballad had become a burlesque mocking puritan morality. The song survives today, most recently as a recording by the rock group Traffic in 1970.