Ruth Finnegan OBE, FBA, Emeritus Professor Open University. Her work has mainly been on oral performance, narrative, the ethnography of music, and communicating (including extra-sensory perception). Her publications include Oral Literature in Africa, The Hidden Musicians, Communicating: the Multiple Modes of Human Communication, Why Do We Quote? and, most recently, the novels Black Inked Pearl, Voyage of Pearl of the Seas, and The Helix Pearl. Born in Ireland, she now lives in Old Bletchley, southern England.

The study of oral traditions and verbal arts leads into an area of human culture to which anthropologists are increasingly turning their attention. Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts provides up-to-date guidance on how to approach the study of oral form and their performances, treating both the practicalities of fieldwork and the methods by which oral texts and performances can be observed, collected or analysed. It also relates to those current controversies about the nature of performance and of 'text'. Designed as a practical and systematic introduction to the processes and problems of researching in this area, this is an invaluable guide for students, and lecturers of anthropology and cultural studies and also for general readers who are interested in enjoying oral literature for its own sake.