Chapbooks

      Chapbooks were a popular literary form, usually pamphlets or cheaply printed books sold by chapmen - itinerant merchants, themselves very poor and peddling to the peasantry and the urban poor.  They were typically illustrated with wood-block prints, 16 to 24 pages - kind of the comic book of their time.  They were usually pretty crude in production values, with illustrations largely generic, poor copy editing and printing standards.  Their audience was similar to that for the old oral story-tellers, and chapbooks therefore tended to tell the same kind of stories: old romances and legends, fairy tales, etc., but also included versions of literary works (Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress).

      At a time when even very popular novels for the general trade rarely sold more than a few thousand copies, chapbooks were everywhere, with one publisher estimated to have “had in stock one chapbook for every fifteen families in England” (Hunt 40).  Chapbook publishers had a network of distribution through the peasants who traveled the countryside, in contrast to book publishers located in a specific place.

Little Goody Two-Shoes

The Children in the Wood

Dick Whittington

      The historical Whittington was the son of a knight, Sir William Whittington. Little to nothing is known of his early life; his first historically confirmed act is a donation of five marks to the city of London in 1379.  He married Alice Fitzwarren, the daughter of a knight and landholder from southwestern England, and apparently had no children.  He is not mentioned in any historical records outside of London, but appears to have been impressive within the city for “his commercial success, unusually prolonged civic career, and great loans to the crown” (DNB 155) – he was in fact Lord Mayor of London for 3 ½ terms, not just three as the legend has it.  Because his philanthrophy included rebuilding of a major prison and the founding of an important almshouse, his name remained prominent long after his death, when more of the facts of his life had been forgotten.

      The story of the cat is widely known from the folklore of various countries throughout Europe and at least as far away as Persia; some have traced it to Buddhist traditions (DNB 156).

SOURCES:  Peter Hunt, Ed., Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History, Oxford UP, 1995.  Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, Eds., Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), Oxford UP, 1968.

A. Waller Hastings
Professor of English
Northern State University
Aberdeen, SD  57401

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