ell), the comparatively
modern name applied by booksellers and bibliophiles to the little
stitched tracts written for the common people and formerly circulated in
England, Scotland and the American colonies by itinerant dealers or
chapmen, consisting chiefly of vulgarized versions of popular stories,
such as _Tom Thumb_, _Jack the Giant Killer_, _Mother Shipton_, and
_Reynard the Fox_--travels, biographies and religious treatises. Few of
the older chapbooks exist. Samuel Pepys collected some of the best and
had them bound into small quarto volumes, which he called Vulgaria;
also four volumes of a smaller size, which he lettered _Penny
Witticisms, Penny Merriments, Penny Compliments_ and _Penny
Godlinesses_. The early chapbooks were the direct descendants of the
black-letter tracts of Wynkyn de Worde. It was in France that the
printing-press first began to supply reading for the common people. At
the end of the 15th century there was a large popular literature of
farces, tales in verse and prose, satires, almanacs, &c., stitched
together so as to contain a few leaves, and circulated by itinerant
booksellers, known as colporteurs. Most early English chapbooks are
adaptations or translations of these French originals, and were
introduced into England early in the 16th century. The chapbooks of the
17th century present us with valuable illustrations of the manners of
the time; one of the best known is that containing the story of Dick
Whittington. Others which had a great vogue are _Jack the Giant Killer,
Little Red Riding Hood_, and _Mother Shipton_. Those of the 18th century
are far inferior in every way, both as regards the literature and the
printing; and unfortunately it is these which form the bulk of what is
now known to us in collections as chapbooks. They have never exercised
any great influence in England nor received much attention, owing no
doubt to their poor literary character. In France, on the other hand,
their French equivalents have been the object of close and systematic
study, and _L'Histoire des livres populaires ou de la litterature du
colportage_ by Charles Nisard (1854) goes deeply into the subject.
Amongst English books may be mentioned _Notices of Fugitive Tracts and
Chapbooks_, by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps (1849); _Chapbooks of the 18th
Century_, by John Ashton (1882), and some reprints by the Villon Society
in 1885. The word "chapbook" has not been noticed earlier than 1824,
when Dibdin, the celebr