Won't You Buy My Pretty Flowers

DESCRIPTION: "Underneath the gaslight glitter Stands a fragile little girl" who cries out to the crowds in winter, "Won't you buy my pretty flowers?" No one listens to her, or buys; all are hurrying to their home. She has no friends; no one pities her
AUTHOR: unknown (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1874 (sheet music by French & Persley)
KEYWORDS: flowers commerce
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 161, "There are many sad and lonely" (1 fragment)
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, pp. 244-245, "The Flower Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Reginald Nettel, _Seven Centuries of Popular Song_, Phoenix House, 1956, pp. 170-171, "(no title)" (1 text)
Roud #12906
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Poor Little Joe (The Dying Newsboy)" (theme of a young person trying to sell something no one bothers to buy)
NOTES [258 words]: This sounds as if it's supposed to end with the girl dying in the cold, or of starvation, or both. But neither element is found in Huntington's text, or Nettel's, or in the sheet music copies I've seen.
I found an Internet source which claimed that this has words by Jennie Calef and music by H. P. Danks, but it also dates it to 1887, which is after the song was found in the Eliza Adams journal! On a mudcat thread, one source claimed that it' has words by Arthur W. French, music by George W. Persley, and was from 1874. Nettel also attributes the music to Persley (without listing a source of the words). I've seen sheet music to the same effect, and the French/Persley piece the sheet music contains is certainly this song, Another Internet source, https://martynjolly.com/2016/03/17/wont-you-buy-my-pretty-flowers/, shows a series of magic lantern slides of the song and says that Calef and Danks stole the song to use it in their play "Little Muffets" and then copyrighted it. On the other hand, Henry P. Danks did write some pretty good tunes ("Silver Threads among the Gold" and "Amber Tresses Tied in Blue"), whereas French and Persley are pretty obscure, so I can't prove that the theft didn't go the other way. And Danks was born in 1834, so he was certainly old enough to have written the song before 1874. I am inclined toward the French and Persley claim, but not enough to state it as certain.
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood cites the French and Persley claim, but from Nettl, so I don't think that tells us anything. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: HGam244

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