Chapbooks were small booklets, usually printed on a single piece of paper and folded into books of eight, twelve, sixteen or twenty-four pages. They were in circulation from C17 to C19, and they were sold in markets and fairs by hawkers or "chapmen" for a penny or less. The quality of paper was poor and sometimes the illustrations bore no relation to the text. They were the reading matter of the common people. The subject matter was very broad - biographies, romances, religious writings, songs, poems and instruction manuals. They were read by (or perhaps read out to) people of all ages. This...
Chapbooks were small booklets, usually printed on a single piece of paper and folded into books of eight, twelve, sixteen or twenty-four pages. They w...