Broadsheet Collection

Collection description

The Broadsheet Collection contains Finnish spiritual and secular broadsheet ballads, broadsheet fairytales and broadsheet literature in Swedish printed and published in Finland from the 1600s to the 1930s.

Broadsheet literature refers to inexpensive ephemera. Broadsheet ballads and fairy tales were published as leaflets the size of a whole, half or a quarter broadsheet on which one or more text was printed. They were sold by travelling salesmen.

The Broadsheet Collection has approximately 1,750 spiritual and 4,850 secular broadsheet ballads. There are also approximately 750 broadsheet fairytales.

The collection comprises the following groups based on the collection's cataloguer Arvid Hultin's catalogue:

• A series, 3 volumes, starting from the 1600s
• B series, 2 volumes
• C series, 1 volume, "Collected spiritual songs", first editions also from 1771–1794
• D series, 11 volumes
• The main series(18 volumes from 1700–1856, in chronological order by edition)
• Finnish broadsheet ballads
  • Spiritual hymns, 9 volumes
  • Koskimies Collection, 1 volume
  • Songs, 7 volumes, numbered reprints of broadsheet ballads from 1790s–1870s, also tales
  • "Readers", 1 volume outspoken tales and broadsheet ballads from 1852–1865
  • Fairytales and stories, broadsheet fairytales and stories
  • Hymns of Zion, 1 volume
  • Hymns and songs, 1 volume
• Broadsheet ballads in Swedish (Andliga sånger, Skillingstryck, 1 volume)
• Separata (broadsheet ballads in Finnish and Swedish, which are not included in the above)