Editing Sabine Baring-Gould (section)

==Folk songs==
{{More citations needed|date= October 2021}}
Baring-Gould regarded his principal achievement to be the collection of folk songs that he made with the help of the ordinary people of [[Cornwall]] and [[Devon]]. His first book of songs, ''Songs and Ballads of the West'' (1889–91), was published in four parts between 1889 and 1891. The musical editor for this collection was [[Henry Fleetwood Sheppard]], though some of the songs included were noted by Baring-Gould's other collaborator [[Frederick Bussell]].

Baring-Gould and Sheppard produced a second collection named ''A Garland of Country Songs'' during 1895. A new edition of ''Songs of the West'' was proposed for publication in 1905. Sheppard had died in 1901, and so the folk song collector [[Cecil Sharp]] was invited to undertake the musical editorship for the new edition. Sharp and Baring-Gould also collaborated on ''English Folk Songs for Schools'' during 1907. This collection of 53 songs was widely used in British schools for the next 60 years.

Although he had to modify the words of some songs which were too rude for the time, he left his original manuscripts for future students of folk song, thereby preserving many beautiful pieces of music and their lyrics which might otherwise have been lost.

Baring-Gould gave the [[Foul papers | fair copies]] of the folk songs he collected, together with the notebooks he used for gathering information in the field, to Plymouth Public Library in 1914. They were deposited with the [[Plymouth and West Devon Record Office]] in 2006. These, together with the folk-song manuscripts from Baring-Gould's library discovered at [[Killerton]] in 1998, were published as a microfiche edition in 1998. In 2011 the complete collection of his folk-song manuscripts, including two notebooks not in the microfiche edition, were digitised and published online by the Devon Tradition Project managed by Wren Music<ref>{{cite web |url= http://wrenmusic.co.uk/ |title=Wren Music |work=wrenmusic.co.uk |access-date=12 August 2023}}</ref> in association with the [[English Folk Dance and Song Society]] as part of the "Take Six" project undertaken by the [[Vaughan Williams Memorial Library]]. It now forms part of the VWML's "Full English" website. Thirty boxes of additional manuscript material on other topics (the Killerton manuscripts) are kept in the Devon History Centre in Exeter.

[[Cecil Sharp]] dedicated his book ''English Folk Song: Some Conclusions'' (1907) to Baring-Gould.