Bound Volume of Sheet Music

1868, 1886 - 1894. Sheetmusic. Fair. Various paginations. 35 cm. Half leather with brown cloth boards. Cover label reads Ida Bampfield. Front cover and endpapers detached. Rear cover very loose. Most of spine missing. Corners worn. Some chips and tears to music within, especially The Old Sentinel March, which has tape repairs. Numerous music store ink stamps.

29 pieces of sheet music by various mainly American publishers, mainly 1880s and 90s. Three full colour lithograph covers. Numerous b&w covers, either full covers or vignettes. Highlights: 2. Gussie L. Davis's The Fatal Wedding, described by the website Tear Jerkers in American Song as "one of the most depressing songs ever wiritten." Gussie L. Davis was a black songwriter from Ohio, and one of the few black songwriters of minstrel songs to succeed in Tin Pan Alley. 16. Life's Dream Is O'er, another tearjerker, and the oldest song in this volume. 27. Sousa's The Liberty Bell March, composed in 1893 and considered one of the finest of Sousa's 136 marches. 29. Valisi's Chicago Day Waltz, commemorating the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. The cover shows the large water pool which was a central feature of the fair and highlights October 9, 1893, the day designated as Chicago Day. On that day, the fair set a world record for outdoor event attendance, drawing 716,881 people.

The owner of the book, Ida Bampfield, lived at Bampfield Hall, Zimmerman Avenue, Niagara Falls. The Bampfields were one of the most prominent families in Niagara Falls in the 1800s. James Bampfield, builder of the house, owned and operated the Great Western Restaurant in the train station on Bridge Street and was a stockholder in the Niagara Falls Electric Light and Power Company.