ANTIQUE VICTORIAN OLD 1872 AMERICANA SONGSTERS NY NYC THEATRE SONG LINGARD

1872 complete book measuring approximately 6 3/8 x 4 3/8 inches and containing 176 pages plus advertising.  Thanks for looking.

Below is a little background about this Mr. Lingard:

On September 28, 1868 the Lydia Thompson Burlesque Troupe, comprised of star burlesque actresses from the top theatres in London, made its New York. debut[1] Both contemporaries and historians credit the Thompson Troupe for starting a "burlesque mania" that would sweep the nation. These performances combined burlesque's traditional aspects of satire, parody, travesty, and caricature with pantomime's cross-dressed "dame" and "principle boy" roles. In the burlesque performances of the era, male actors performed female roles in drag, while actresses played male characters attired only in thigh-length tunics and tights, the masculine costume of the ancient world, which some people found scandalous by the standards of the day. In these cross-dressed roles performers flirted and fought with one another, while speaking in witty dialogue full of topical allusions and sexual double-meanings.

The swell's female counterpart is the fashionable belle, also called "the queen of society" or "the girl of the period." Quick-change artist William Horace Lingard specialised in skits about the belle. Pictorial sheet music covers for "The Grecian Bend," "I'm Not a Gossip," "On the Beach at Long Branch," and "The Gay Masque Ball," depict Lingard in wigs and stylish dresses. In each, he assumes a stereotypically elite feminine pose, such as coquettishly holding a fan or attempting to walk in the new Grecian Bend corset. However, Lingard's impersonations of fashionable women are not overly exaggerated, as he could easily pass as one of them.

Source:  Not Just a Leg Show: Gayness and Male Homoeroticism in Burlesque, 1868 to 1877, Michelle Durden

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On Jun-12-11 at 16:13:01 PDT, seller added the following information: