1. The Archive has accumulated 748 literary ballads by 143 poets of the last 300 years.  (as of 7 February 2023)
  2. 'What is the Literary Ballad?' as the Introduction to the Archive discusses the definition of the literary ballad.
  3. Short biographical headnotes are provided for each poet.
  4. The year noted at the end of each piece tells when it was first written or published.
  5. The obvious misprints in the original texts are corrected in square brackets.
  6. In the Introduction and the biographical sketches, Child's version category in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads is indicated by the number and letters in parentheses, as in (Child 10A).
  7. The essays on the literary ballads are listed at the end of the poet's biography.
  8. The poems translated into Japanese are listed besides the original texts in English, and are added each time to 'A List of Translations'.
  9. Two tables of poets, in alphabetical order, and in the division of chronological periods of 20 years, are provided for the convenience of the user to look up literary balladists.