Chapbook is a generic term to cover a particular genre of pocket-sized booklet, popular from the sixteenth through to the later part of the nineteenth century. No exact definition can be applied.
The term
chap-book was coined by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of
ephemeraEphemera is transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,...
(disposable printed material). It includes many kinds of printed material, such as
pamphletA pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
s, political and religious
tractA tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the twenty-first century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They...
s,
nursery rhymeThe term nursery rhyme is used for ‘traditional’ songs for young children in Britain and many English speaking countries, but usage only dates from the nineteenth century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
s,
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, folk tales, children's literature and almanacs. Where there were illustrations, they would be popular prints. The term is derived from
chapmenA chapman was an itinerant dealer or hawker in early modern Britain.-Etymology:Old English céapmann was the regular term for "dealer, seller", cognate to the synonymous German Kaufmann....
, a variety of
peddlerA peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a canvasser, cheapjack, monger, or solicitor , is a travelling vendor of goods. In England, the term was mostly used for travellers hawking goods in the countryside to small towns and villages; they might also be called tinkers or gypsies...
, who circulated such literature as part of their stock.
History
There are records from
CambridgeshireCambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
as early as in 1553 of a man offering a scurrilous ballad
"maistres mass" at an alehouse, and a pedlar selling
"lytle books" to people, including a patcher of old clothes in 1578. These sales are probably characteristic of the market for chapbooks.
Broadside ballads were popular songs, sold for a
pennyA penny , also known as a cent or minor, is a coin or a unit of currency used in several English-speaking countries.Pennies appear to have been in use since the first use of minted coinage.-Etymology:...
or halfpenny in the streets of towns and villages around Britain between the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. They preceded chapbooks, but had similar content, marketing and distribution systems.
Chapbooks gradually disappeared from the mid nineteenth century in the face of competition from cheap newspapers and, especially in Scotland, religious tract societies that regarded them as "ungodly."
Although the form originated in Britain, many were made in the U.S. during the same period. Chapbooks are published in South America even today.
Because of their flimsy nature such
ephemeraEphemera is transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,...
rarely survive as individual items. They were aimed at buyers without formal libraries, and, in an era when paper was expensive, were used for wrapping or baking. Paper has also always had hygienic uses and there are contemporary references to the use of chapbooks as
bum fodder (i.e.
toilet paperToilet paper is a soft paper product used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. It differs in composition somewhat from facial tissue, and is designed to decompose in septic tanks, whereas some other bathroom and facial tissues do not. Most septic tank manufacturers...
).
Many of the surviving chapbooks come from the collections of
Samuel PepysSamuel Pepys, FRS was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for his diary. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II...
between 1661 and 1688 which are now held at
Magdalene CollegeMagdalene College redirects here, see also Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England....
,
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
.
Anthony WoodAnthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:He was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , B.C.L. of Oxford, where Anthony was born...
also collected 65 chapbooks, (including 20 from before 1660), which are now at The
Bodleian LibraryThe Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
. There are also significant Scottish collections.
Modern collectors, such as Peter Opie, have chiefly a scholarly interest in the form.
Production and distribution
Chapbooks are mostly small
paperPaper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
-covered booklets, usually printed on a single sheet folded into books of 8, 12, 16 and 24 pages, often illustrated with crude
woodcutWoodcut — formally known as xylography — is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s, which sometimes bear no relation to the text. They were produced cheaply. One collector, Harry Weiss, wrote:
"the printing in many cases was execrable, the paper even worse, and the woodcut illustrations, some of which did duty for various tales regardless of their fitness, were sometimes worse than the paper and presswork combined". However, the category has no real limits: some chapbooks were long, some well produced, and some even historically accurate.
The centre of chapbook and ballad production was
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, and until the
Great Fire of LondonThe Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
the printers were based around
London BridgeLondon Bridge is a bridge between the City of London and Southwark in London, England, over the River Thames. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...
. However, a feature of chapbooks is the proliferation of provincial printers, especially in Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne.
Content
Chapbooks were an important medium for the dissemination of popular culture to the common people, especially in rural areas. They were a medium of entertainment, information and (generally unreliable) history. They are now valued as a record of popular culture, preserving cultural artifacts that may not survive in any other form.
Chapbooks were priced for sales to workers, although their market was not limited to the working classes. Broadside ballads were sold for a halfpenny, or a few pence. Prices of chapbooks were from 2d. to 6d., when agricultural labourers wages were 12d. per day. It needs to be remembered that in early modern England literacy was not uncommon, and in Scotland probably more so. Many working people were readers, even if not writers, and pre-industrial working patterns provided periods during which they could read. Chapbooks were undoubtedly used for reading to family groups or groups in alehouses.
They even contributed to the development of literacy.
Francis KirkmanFrancis Kirkman appears in many roles in the English literary world of the second half of the seventeenth century, as a publisher, bookseller, librarian, author and bibliographer...
, the author and publisher, wrote about how they fired his imagination and his love of books. There is other evidence of their use by autodidacts.
Nevertheless, the numbers printed are astonishing. In the 1660s as many as 400,000
almanacAn almanac is an annual publication containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar...
s were printed annually, enough for one family in three in England. One seventeenth century publisher of chapbooks in London had in stock one book for every 15 families in the country. In the 1520s the
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
bookseller, John Dorne, noted in his day-book selling up to 190 ballads a day at a halfpenny each. The probate inventory of the stock of Charles Tias, of
The sign of the Three Bibles on London Bridge, in 1664 included books and printed sheets to make c.90,000 chapbooks (inc. 400 reams of paper) and 37,500 ballad sheets. Tias was not regarded as an outstanding figure in the trade. The inventory of Josiah Blare, of
The Sign of the Looking Glass on London Bridge, in 1707 listed 31,000 books, plus 257 reams of printed sheets. A conservative estimate of their sales in Scotland alone in the second half of the eighteenth century was over 200,000 per year.
These printers provided chapbooks to
chapmenA chapman was an itinerant dealer or hawker in early modern Britain.-Etymology:Old English céapmann was the regular term for "dealer, seller", cognate to the synonymous German Kaufmann....
on credit, who carried them around the country, selling from door to door, at markets and fairs, and returning to pay for the stock they sold. This facilitated wide distribution and large sales with minimum outlay, and also provided the printers with feedback about what titles were most popular. Popular works were reprinted, pirated, edited, and produced in different editions.
Francis KirkmanFrancis Kirkman appears in many roles in the English literary world of the second half of the seventeenth century, as a publisher, bookseller, librarian, author and bibliographer...
, whose eye was always on the market, wrote two sequels to the popular
Don Bellianus of Greece, first printed in 1598.
Publishers also issued catalogues, and chapbooks are found in the libraries of provincial yeomen and
gentryGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
. John Whiting, a Quaker yeoman imprisoned at
IlchesterIlchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. The parish, which includes the village of Sock Dennis , has a population of 2,021.Sock Dennis lies on the Monarch's Way long-distance footpath.-Roman times:In...
,
SomersetSomerset is a county in South West England. The county town is Taunton, which is in the south of the county. The ceremonial county of Somerset borders the counties of Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west...
in the 1680s had books sent by carrier from London, and left for him at an inn.
Pepys had a collection of ballads bound into volumes, under the following classifications, into which could fit the subject matter of most chapbooks:
- Devotion and Morality
- History – true and fabulous
- Tragedy: viz. Murders, executions, and judgements of God
- State and Times
- Love – pleasant
- Ditto – unpleasant
- Marriage, Cuckoldry, &c.
- Sea – love, gallantry & actions
- Drinking and good fellowship
- Humour, frollicks and mixt.
The stories in many of the popular chapbooks can be traced back to much earlier origins.
Bevis of Hampton, was an Anglo-Norman romance of thirteenth century, which probably drew on earlier themes. The structure of
The Seven Sages of RomeThe Seven Wise Masters is a cycle of stories of Sanskrit, Persian or Hebrew origins.-Story and Plot:...
was from the orient, and was used by Chaucer. Many jests about ignorant and greedy clergy in chapbooks were taken from
The Friar and the Boy printed about 1500 by
Wynkyn de WordeWynkyn de Worde was a printer and publisher known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognized as the first to popularize the products of the printing press.-Life and work:...
, and
The Sackfull of News, (1557).
Historical stories set in a mythical and fantastical past were popular. The selection is interesting.
Charles ICharles I, , the second son of James VI of Scotland and I of England, was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution. Charles famously engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England...
, and
Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.He was one of the commanders of the New Model Army which defeated the royalists in...
do not appear as historical figures in the Pepys collection, and Elizabeth I only once. The Wars of the Roses and the
English Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
do not appear at all. Henry VIII &
Henry IIHenry II, called Curtmantle ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France...
appear in disguise, standing up for the right with cobblers & millers and then inviting them to Court and rewarding them. There was a pattern of high born heroes overcoming reduced circumstances by valour, such as St George,
Guy of WarwickGuy of Warwick is a legendary English hero of Romance popular in England and France from the 13th to the 17th century.-Plot:The core of the legend is that Guy falls in love with the lady Felice, who is of much higher social standing...
,
Robin HoodRobin Hood is a hero in English folklore, a highly-skilled archer and outlaw. In particular, he is known for "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor," assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men"...
(who at this stage has yet to give to the poor what he was stealing from the rich), and heroes of low birth who achieve status through force of arms, such as
Clim of Clough, and
William of Cloudesley. Clergy often appear as figures of fun, and stupid countrymen were also popular (e.g.,
The Wise Men of Gotham). Other works were aimed at regional and rural audience (e.g.,
The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse).
From 1597 works appeared aimed at specific trades, such as clothiers, weavers and shoemakers. The latter were commonly literate. Thomas Deloney, a weaver, wrote
Thomas of ReadingReading is a large town in England, located at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London...
, about six clothiers from
ReadingReading is a large town in England, located at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London...
,
GloucesterGloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
,
WorcesterWorcester is a city and county town of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some 30 miles southwest of Birmingham, 29 miles north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people...
,
ExeterExeter is a city and district in Devon, England; it is the county town of Devon. Exeter is located approximately northeast of Plymouth, and southwest of Bristol, on the River Exe. The city has a population of 111,076 according to the 2001 Census....
,
SalisburySalisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England. It has also been called New Sarum to distinguish it from the original site of settlement to the north of the city at Old Sarum, but this alternative name is not in common use. Similarly, a native of Salisbury may be known as a "Sarumite", but...
&
SouthamptonSouthampton is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, travelling together and meeting at
BasingstokeBasingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading, and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2006 it had an estimated population of 80,477...
their fellows from
KendalKendal is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. It is south of Carlisle, on the River Kent, and has a total resident population of 27,505, making it the third largest settlement in Cumbria .Historically a part of Westmorland, Kendal today is known...
,
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
and
HalifaxHalifax is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England, with an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece Hall...
. In his,
Jack of NewburyNewbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings...
, 1600, set in Henry VIII's time, an apprentice to a
broadclothBroadcloth is a dense woolen cloth. Modern broadcloth can be composed of cotton, silk, or polyester, but traditionally broadcloth was made solely of wool. The dense weave lends sturdiness to the material....
weaver takes over his business and marries his widow on his death. On achieving success, he is liberal to the poor and refuses a knighthood for his substantial services to the king.
Other examples from the Pepys collection include
The Countryman's Counsellor, or Everyman his own Lawyer, and
Sports and Pastimes, written for schoolboys, including magic tricks, like how to
"fetch a shilling out of a handkerchief", write invisibly, make roses out of paper, snare wild duck, and make a maid-servant fart uncontrollably.
The provinces and Scotland had their own local heroes.
Robert BurnsRobert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
commented that one of the first two books he read
in private was
the history of Sir William WallaceSir William Wallace was a Scottish knight and landowner who is known for leading a resistance during the Wars of Scottish Independence and is today remembered in Scotland as a patriot and national hero....
that
poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest
Influence
They had a wide and continuing influence. 80% of English folk songs collected by early twentieth century collectors have been linked to printed broadsides, including over 90 of which could only be derived from those printed before 1700. It has been suggested the majority of surviving ballads can be traced to 1550-1600 by internal evidence.
One of the most popular and influential chapbooks was Richard Johnson's
Seven Champions of Christendom (1596), believed to be the source for the introduction of the character St George into English
folk playFolk plays such as Hoodening, Guising, Mumming and Soul Caking are generally verse sketches performed in countryside pubs, private houses or the open air, at set times of the year such as the Winter or Summer solstices or Christmas and New Year...
s.
Robert GreeneRobert Greene was an English author best known today for his pamphlet Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, containing a polemic attack on William Shakespeare. He was born in Norwich and attended Cambridge University, receiving a BA in 1580, and a MA in 1583 before moving to London, where he arguably...
's novel,
Dorastus and Fawnia, (originally
Pandosto) (1588), the basis of Shakespeare's
The Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623. Although it was listed as a comedy when it first appeared, some modern editors have relabeled the play a romance. Some critics, among them W. W...
was still being published in cheap editions in the 1680s. Some stories were still being published in the nineteenth century, (e.g.,
Jack of Newbury,
Friar Bacon,
Dr Faustus and
The Seven Champions of Christendom).
Modern chapbooks
Chapbook is also a term currently used to denote publications of up to about 40 pages, usually
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
bound with some form of saddle stitch, though many are perfect bound, folded, or wrapped. These publications range from low-cost productions to finely produced, hand-made editions that may sell to collectors for hundreds of dollars. More recently, the popularity of fiction chapbooks has also increased.
The genre has been revitalized in the past 40 years by the widespread availability of first mimeograph technology, then low-cost copy centers and digital printing, and by the cultural revolutions spurred by both zines and poetry slams, the latter generating hundreds upon hundreds of self-published chapbooks that are used to fund tours.
With the recent popularity of blogs, online literary journals, and other online publishers, short collections of poetry published online are frequently referred to as "online chapbooks."
Chapbook collections
- The National Library of Scotland holds a large collection of Scottish chapbooks; approximately 4,000 of an estimated total of 15,000 published. Records for most Scottish chapbooks have been catalogued online.
- The Library of the University of Glasgow has over 1,000 examples throughout the collections, searchable online via the Scottish Chapbooks Catalogue of c.4,000 works, which covers the Lauriston Castle collection, Edinburgh City libraries and Stirling University. The University of South Carolina's G. Ross Roy Collection is collaborating in research for the Scottish Chapbook Project.
- The Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford has over 30,000 ballads in several major collections. The original printed materials range from the 16th- to the 20th-Century. The Broadside Ballads project makes the digitised copies of the sheets and ballads available.
- Sir Frederick Madden’s Collection of Broadside Ballads, at Cambridge University Library, is possibly the largest collection from London and provincial presses between 1775 and 1850, with earlier eighteenth-century garlands and Irish volumes.
- The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Chapbook Collection has 1,900 chapbooks from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and the United States, which were part of the Elisabeth W. Ball collection. Online search facility
- The Elizabeth Nesbitt Room, University of Pittsburgh, houses over 270 chapbooks printed in both England and America between the years 1650 to 1850 (a few Scottish chapbooks are included as well). Title list, bibliographic information and digital images of chapbook covers
- Rutgers University, Special Collections and University Archives, houses the Harry Bischoff Weiss collection of 18th and 19th century chapbooks, illustrated with catchpenny prints.
- The John Rylands University Library (JRUL), University of Manchester, contains 600 items in The Sharpe Collection of Chapbooks, formed by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. These are 19th-century items printed in Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne.
- Literatura de Cordel Brazilian Chapbook Collection Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, has a collection of over 7200 chapbooks (literatura de cordel). Descended from the medieval troubadour and chapbook tradition of European literatura de cordel has been published in Brazil for over a century.
- The University of Guelph Library, Archival and Special Collections, has a collection of more than 550 chapbooks in its extensive Scottish holdings.
- The National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, has a collection of ca. 800 chapbooks, all catalogued.