John Hartley

John Hartley (1839–1915) was a Halifax writer of Yorkshire dialect verse and prose. Moorman's anthology calls him the most versatile dialect writer Yorkshire had produced: for some fifty years he poured out lyric song and prose tale, most of it in the Halifax Original Illuminated Clock Almanac, which he began in 1867 and edited until his death. His Yorkshire Lyrics appeared in 1898.

This selection gathers the verse of Yorkshire Ditties (First and Second Series), Yorkshire Lyrics, including its closing section of fugitive verses not in dialect, and two poems from F. W. Moorman's Yorkshire Dialect Poems (1916). Poems that appear in more than one volume are given once; the prose pieces of the Ditties volumes are left out. Dialect spelling is kept as printed.