Preston’s Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year [1786–1818]

Preston’s Country Dances was an annual pamphlet series published by the London firm Preston & Son (later Thomas Preston) from 1786 to at least 1818, issuing twenty-four country dances per year with tunes and choreographic figures for the fashionable assembly-room circuit — the title pages specify dances “as they are performed at Court, Bath, and all Public Assemblies.” The booklets are small oblong-format publications printed for a single melody line, intended for violin, flute, or similar instrument. Tunes were numbered continuously across the annual volumes, reaching approximately 861 by the final known issue. Digitized scans of most volumes are held by the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (EFDSS) at Cecil Sharp House, London, and are available online. ABC transcriptions of several volumes have also been made from those scans.

1957 scan of 1793, 1794 pamplets at Internet Archive