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Singing and Dancing Wherever She Goes: A Life of Maud Karpeles Simona Pakenham. London: English Folk Dance and Song Society, 2011. xii + 276pp. Illus. Bibliog. Discog. Index. ISBN 978-0-85418-216-9. £10.00.
Maud Karpeles is perhaps the most influential figure in the English folk revival after Cecil Sharp. She is certainly among those few in the pantheon who have shaped the course and nature of the revival, so it is both odd and regrettable that there has until now been no substantial account of her life. This book goes some way to addressing that lacuna. Its aims are modest. On the back cover we are told: 'It is not a critical biography, nor does it attempt an academic analysis of the context in which she moved and viewed the world.'
So what does it contain? The answer is, a very detailed and affectionate chronological description of her life. This is not to say that it is unscholarly: far from it, it is fully referenced, with over four hundred endnotes providing the sources for the account. But an analysis of the sources reveals that 90 per cent of them are from just two people: Maud Karpeles herself, and Cecil Sharp. Two thirds of those emanating from Karpeles are, not unnaturally, drawn from her unpublished autobiography, while nine out...