The Northumbrian Minstrel is a songbook, giving the lyrics of local, now historical songs, printed and published at Alnwick in 1811 by William Davison. The majority of the songs are from the north of the , and therefore the content differs from most of the other popular Northumbrian chapbooks.
The full title of the book is The Northumbrian Minstrel: A Choice selection of Songs. The book contains almost 60 pages and 45 song and folksong lyrics, many in Geordie dialect. The songs, from north Northumberland and southern Scotland, would have been popular, or topical, at the date of publication. There is nothing in the way of biographies of the authors or histories of the events. No music is included, only lyrics.
The book includes both anonymous or traditional lyrics and works by named authors, including a significant number by Robert Burns.
The book is included in Oliver Heslop's Bibliographical List of Works Illustrative of the Dialect of Northumberland, published in 1896 by the English Dialect Society.
The front cover of the book was as thus :-<br/ ><br/ >
THE<br/ > Northumbrian<br/ > MINSTREL<br/ > A<br/ > CHOICE SELECTION<br/ > OF<br/ > SONGS<br/ > ----<br/ >
_____<br/ > ALNWICK<br/ > PRINTED BY W. DAVISON<br/ > ----<br/ > 1811<br/ >
Are as below :-<br/ >