Portal:Anonymous texts

Anonymous texts

The texts on this page are likely to have individual authors, but we don't know who they are. An important part of this category will be medieval tales and legends. Dates of the works here tend to be speculative.

Ballads or poems

• A Grand Ball – an invitation to a ball in the form of a ballad
• Asanaginica — a Bosnian folk ballad tracing back to the 17th century
• Alysoun
• The Best Place for a Village
• The Assembly of Ladies
• Balade in Praise of Chaucer
• The Ballad of Chevy Chase Child ballad
• Battle of Grendon — 29 August, 1876
• The Battle of Hampton Roads — from Vanity Fair; March 29, 1862
• The Battle of Ross na Ríg — Irish saga, circa 1160
• The Battle of the Boyne — Irish saga, circa 1575
• Belfast Brigade
• Beowulf
• Blow northerne wynd! — 14th century Middle English poem
• Boil it down
• Book of Dede Korkut — the most famous epic of the Oghuz Turks
• Bridge of Arta
• Captain Wedderburn's courtship — 1820
• Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day, illustrations by Frederick Waddy — 1873
• Caesar Rodney's Ride
• Columbia's Dismissed Professors — from The Literary Digest; October 20, 1917
• The comic valentine writer (1850)
• The Court of Love
• Cross of the South — traditional Australian folksong
• The Cuckoo Song - 13th/14th century lyric
• The Dragon of Wantley — 17th century
• The Dream of the Rood — 10th century
• The Duttons and theyr fellow-players forsakying the Erle of Warwycke — 1580s
• Early One Morning — traditional folk song
• El Coloquio de los Doce — early Spanish colonial manuscript, 1524
• Elefantes — traditional Hispanic children's song
• The elegy of James Purcell of Loughmoe — 1722
• Envoy to Alison
• An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex — 17th century; attributed to Judith Drake
• The Fairy-Queen — late 17th century libretto
• Finnegan's Wake — a mock-Irish street ballad thought to have been written in the 1850s
• The Flower and the Leaf
• Golden Vanity — ballad about Sir Walter Raleigh
• Greek Creation Myth
• The High History of the Holy Graal
• Hymn of the pearl - from the Acts of Thomas
• A Hymn to the Virgin - anonymous 14th century poem
• Ich am of Irlaunde — a Middle English poem written circa 1300
• The Intoxication of the Ulstermen — 11th/12th century Irish saga
• Jack Upland ca. 1402, a denunciation of the Friars
• The Jail of Clonmel — 18th century Irish poem
• Jeany Diver (1799)
• Jesus Christ Is Risen Today — a 14th century Latin hymn, translated in 1708 (later expanded into Christ the Lord Is Risen Today)
• The Land of Cokaygne — a Middle English poem written in southeast Ireland about 1330
• The Laxdaela Saga epic poem
• Leaulte vault Richesse
• Lenten ys come with love to toune — a Middle English poem written circa 1300.
• Lines from Love Letters — anonymous poem, 14th century; macaronic in Middle English, Middle French and Latin
• The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring — anonymous poem, 16th century
• Love's mystery (1888)
• May We Knit on Sunday — published in The Literary Digest; October 20, 1917
• Mursheen Durkin
• Old Miser
• Olinda's Adventures: or the Amours of a Young Lady — possibly by Catharine Trotter Cockburn
• The Parting Glass
• The Patriot's Lament
• Pearl, by Pearl Poet
• Peter's Banquet, or, The Cavalier in the Dumps (1645)
• The Plowman's Tale — a 14th century poem (ca. 1395), an allegory against religious abuses
  • The Plowman's Tale edition by Walter Skeat, 1897
• The Raggle Taggle Gypsy
• The Rare Old Mountain Dew
• Rimed Chronicle of Stone Priory
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight epic poem
• Sir Patrick Spens Child ballad
• The Song of Roland — a French chivalric romance written possibly in the 12th century
• Sorrow
• The Story of the Volsungs
• Sumer is icumen in — a Middle English poem written circa 1226
• Sunset on Calvary
• This Worldes Joie
• The Third Part of the Pilgrim's Progress 17th century novel
• The Trial and Execution of the Sparrow for Killing Cock Robin - 19tch century children's book
• The Urantia Book (1955)
• Virelai ("Alone walking, In thought pleyning")
• The Wanton Wife of Bath, a ballad featuring Chaucer's Wife of Bath
• A Word to the Wise — 1858 — anonymous poem
• The Days of the Month — a piece of doggerel
• The Boy Who Never Told a Lie
• The Wild Rover
• Waxies' Dargle

Theatre plays

• The Revenger's Tragedy - Jacobean tragedy
• Arden of Feversham - Elizabethan tragedy
• Edward III - Elizabethan history
• Everyman - 15th century English Morality play
• The Second Shepherds' Play - 15th century English Mystery play
• Master Pathelin - 15th century French farce
• The Cruel Moor - 1613 French tragedy
• Grim the Collier of Croydon - 1662 English play
• Grand Gignol Plays - 19th and 20th century French horror dramas

Anonymous translators

• The Makropoulos Secret (1925), Czech original by Karel Čapek

Autobiographies

• A woman in Berlin - World War II anecdotes

Short stories

• The Still that Died
• Tsar Dukljan

Anonymous translators

• The Best Continental Short Stories of 1923–1924
• The Best Continental Short Stories of 1924–1925

Letters

• Letter in the Perfect Diurnal (1649)
• From Unknown Author to Queen Caroline (1731)

Political works

• Americanisation - a letter to John Stuart Mill (1866)
• Radicalism, what is it?: a letter to a West Kent elector (c. 1870)
• Who are Insulting the Working Classes? (1879) by a working man
• The Extravagent Expenditure of the London School Board (1876)
• Pittsburgh Manifesto (1883)
• The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it (1884)

Erotica

• The Lustful Turk (1820s)
• The Amorous Intrigues and Adventures of Aaron Burr (1861)
• Raped on the Railway (1890s)
• Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal (1893)
• The Convent School (1898) by Rosa Belinda Coote
• Des Grieux, the Prelude to "Teleny" (1899)
• A Night in a Moorish Harem (circa 1900)

Other works

• Liber de Praenominibus
• The Martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch - Early Christian writing ca. 107
• The Hungarian Duke Arpad attacks the Bulgarians and Macedonians (896)
• Gesta Romanorum — a collection of medieval tales used to illustrate moral and religious ideas
• Glosas Emilianenses (10th century)
• Stilfrid and Brunswik (14th century)
• Epitaph of Jacob van Heemskerk (1607)
• Character of a Grumbletonian (1686)
• The Virtues of Coffee, Chocolette, and Thee or Tea (c. 1690)
• Account of the particular soliloquies and covenant engagements, of Mrs. Janet Hamilton (c. 1813–1820)
• Account of the royal visit of George the IVth to Scotland (1822)
• Historical and Ecclesiastical Sketches of Bengal (1829) (transcription project)
• Have you heard the news? (1835) by a Freeman
• Guy Fawkes, or The history of the gunpowder plot (c. 1839–1858)
• Alta California Report of the Bear River Massacre (1863)
• A voice from the signal-box (1874) by a signalman
• A Sketch of the Characters of Sir John Patteson and Sir John Coleridge (1877)
• The Coffee Publichouse (1878)
• A Letter on Pauperism and Crime (1869) by a guardian of the poor
• A Maniac's Confession Featured in Volume 18, Number 106 of The Atlantic Monthly. (August 1866)
• The Irish problem: what lacks the backward farmer most: security or skills? (1869) by Hibernicus
• Voyages and travels of a Bible c. 1840s
• Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on Venezuela (2021-03-08)
• Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on the Administration’s Response to the Microsoft and SolarWinds Intrusions (2021-03-12)
• Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on President Biden’s Upcoming Virtual Bilateral with Ireland (2021-03-17)
• Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (2021-03-23)
• Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on the President’s American Jobs Plan (2021-03-31)
• Background Press Call on the Upcoming Trilateral Meeting with Japan and the Republic of Korea (2021-04-01)
• Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on Afghanistan (2021-04-13)
• Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on Russia (2021-04-15)
• Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on the Official Working Visit of Japan (2021-04-15)

Anonymous translators

• Rules of Life (1865), Latin original by Johan Amos Comenius

Works related to Jonathan Swift

• A counterfeit letter to the queen (1731) – falsely attributed to Jonathan Swift
• An Epigram Occasioned By the Inscription For Swift's Monument (1766)
• Epigram on Two Great Men (1745)
• Epitaph Proposed for Dr. Swift (1745)
• An Inscription Intended For a Compartment in Dr. Swift's Monument (1765)
• To the Memory of Dr. Swift (1755)

See also

The collective texts and anthologies that were previously listed here may now be found at Portal:Collective works.