Chapbook

“ In every city and town and even in the villages peddlers went along the streets selling these chapbooks, as they were called. Imagine how the children, and the grown people too, must have flocked around the peddler as he began taking out one after another of his queer little books, for he had something to please every one. ”

“ The time had changed, and the popular taste had improved; and, after 1832, Chambers’ Journal took the place among the people formerly occupied by chap-books. As the taste for reading increased, the Journal shared honours with other [78] publications, until now the issue of ephemeral literature has reached an extraordinary development. There are, however, many still living who remember the days of chap-literature, and who can recall the zest with which they first read the adventures of ‘Louden Tam,’ ‘Leper the Tailor,’ ‘John Cheap,’ and all that race. ”

“ For instance, though there is undoubtedly something unique and strange about the very appearance of a library of extremely diminutive books, the collector of works of this kind is 'cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd,' within the compass of about two square inches at the most, and probably does not expect to derive either instruction or amusement from their pages when he has succeeded in reading them with the aid of a microscope. His rule is inflexible. Shakespeare in folio must give place to 'The Mite'; 'The English Bijou Almanac' for 1837 is, in his eyes one of the choicest of all volumes. ”

“ I have visited your Bookseller Chapman; seen the Proof-sheets lying on his table; taken order that the reprint shall be well corrected,—indeed, I am to read every sheet myself, and in that way get acquainted with it, before it go into stereotype. Chapman is a tall, lank youth of five-and-twenty; full of good will, but of what other equipment time must yet try. By a little Book of his, which I looked at some months ago, he seemed to me sunk very deep in the dust-hole of extinct Socinianism; a painful predicament for a man! He is not sure of saving much copyright for you ”

“ Many fairy stories which to-day are repeated for the amusement of children were regarded as part of this literature—the traditional folk-lore which often enough survives many changes of the religious [9] faith of a nation, and outlasts much civilisation. Others were originally political satires, or social pasquinades; indeed not a few nursery rhymes mask allusions to important historical incidents. The chap-book form of publication is well adapted for the preservation of half-discredited beliefs, of charms and prophecies, incantations and cures. ”

“ PREFACE. IN the year 1796 I gave to the world a concise pamphlet, in which I avowed myself the fabricator of the manuscripts attributed by me to Shakspeare.
The papers themselves, and the circumstances attending their production, had so highly excited the public curiosity that the whole edition was disposed of in a few hours: and so great has since been the eagerness to procure a copy, that, though originally published at one shilling, a single impression has been sold, in a public auction-room, at the extravagant price of a guinea. ”

“ On borrowing a book, immediately put a cover upon it—and let the cover be of clean, smooth, white or light-coloured paper. What is called nankeen paper is best and strongest for this purpose. Newspaper, or any paper that is printed, makes a vile book-cover. Beside its mean and dirty appearance, the printing-ink will not only soil your own hands while reading, but will do more injury to the binding than if it was left uncovered.
To cover a book neatly—take a sheet of nice paper of more than sufficient size, and lay the book open upon it. ”

“ After the Restoration, a change appears to have come over the popular literature; a new element was introduced; and the internal evidence of the chap-books relating to Peden, Cargill, and other worthies of the ‘killing time,’ indicate that their first editions were published within a few years at least of the events recorded in them. The press, apparently, was made great use of by the preachers who had been ousted from their pulpits; and many sermons were sent out in the form of chap-books. ”

“ His indelicacy is notorious—his coarseness an abomination—but they are characteristic of the class for whom he wrote. He is thoroughly imbued with the national humours and peculiarities of his countrymen of the humblest classes, and his pictures of their manners, modes of thinking and conversation, are always sketched with a strong and faithful pencil. Indeed, the uncommon popularity the chap-books above noted have acquired, entitles them, in many a point of view, to the regard of the moralist, and the literary historian. We meet with them on every stall, and in every cottage. ”

“ I made myself a chapman when very young, in great hopes of being rich when I became old but fortune was fickle and so was I; for I had not been a chapman above two days, until I began to consider the danger of deep ditches, midden-dubs, biting dogs and boggles in barns, bangster wives and weet sacks; and what comfort is it, to ly in a cows oxter, the length of a cold winter night ”

“ Abbey’s series are of this class. The extra-illustrated Shakespeare is a glorified form of Shakespearian collection, bringing text and illustration together—a scrapbook de luxe. One begins by laying in loose pictures here and there in a volume until the binding breaks with the strain. Then the book is taken to pieces, the pages interleaved with illustrations, and the whole collection rebound. It is a worthy ambition to stimulate in young people to be possessed of an entire set of single-play volumes, each one the basis of a picture collection. ”

“ There is a small class in England who ought to know what you have written, and I feel sure your publishers would not throw away copies [Pg 241] sent to these periodicals; especially if your 'Week on the Concord and Merrimac' could accompany them. Chapman, editor of the 'Westminster,' expressed surprise that your book had not been sent him, and I could find very few who had read or seen it. If a new edition should be called for, try to have it better known in Europe, but have a few copies sent to those worthy of it, at all events. ”

“ Nothing that can be said to have given any new feature to chap literature was published after Graham’s death, though it still continued to be very popular. Many printers throughout the country set themselves almost exclusively to its circulation, which, it has been stated, had reached, before the close of the century, a quarter of a million copies annually. The old chap-books were reprinted in almost every town of any note in Scotland, sometimes in full, sometimes abridged; songs and ballads were collected and got up in chap-book and broadside form ”

“ For the chapmen have awakened and have striven, the two young ones together, and then the two young with the old because of his bitter mocks. But now they be got to the road again, and though we be most like to prevent them at a place of refuge, yet wise will it be to leave as little as may be to chance-hap. ”

“ On the morning, the old matron got up first, and ordered up the house, then told me to rise now, for chapman and every body was up; then she asked me if I had an use of laughing in my sleep? Yes, said I, when I see any daft like thing, I can look and laugh at it, as well sleeping as waking: A good preserve us, said she, ye're an unco body, but ye need nae wait on our porrage time, I'se gie you cheese and bread in your pouch, which I willingly accepted, and away I came. ”

“ As soon as Writing occurs in a portable form, whether as cylinders of baked clay in Assyria, or as tablets of bark, wood or wax, or as sheets of parchment or paper, there is a volume, and there is the possibility of a collection of books which forms a Library. ”

“ For the pleasure of readers, the gallant of one sex and the fair of the other, books were required more agreeable to the eye, and less rough to the touch, than those used for the edification of monks or the instruction of scholars. And first of all were substituted, for the purpose of manuscripts, sizes more portable than the grave folio. Then fine and smooth vellum was used for writing, and books were covered in velvet, silk, or woollen stuffs. Moreover, paper, a recent invention, opened up a new era for libraries ”

“ For elegance of form and beauty of typography, no edition of Shakspere hitherto published has excelled the 'Parchment Library Edition.' ... They are in the strictest sense pocket volumes, yet the type is bold, and, being on fine white hand-made paper, can hardly tax the weakest of sight. ”

“ A book as is fuller o' information than a egg is o' meat. A book as was wrote by a person o' quality, therefore a elewating book; wi' nice bold type into it—ah! an' wood-cuts—picters an' engravin's, works o' art as is not to be beat nowheers nor nohow; not in China, Asia, nor Africa, a book therefore as is above an' beyond all price."
"What book is it?" inquired Barnabas, forgetting his haughtiness, and coming up beside the Chapman.
"It's a book," said the Chapman; "no, it's THE book as any young gentleman a-going out into the world ought to have wi' him, asleep or awake." ”

“ Those ephemeral sheets that flutter from the table into the waste-paper basket, which are something more than mere newspapers and less than magazines, and the magazines themselves, which are more than budgets of gossip and less than books, make up a perpetual rain of paper and ink. Thousands of people are engaged in writing them, and millions in reading them. ”

“ An annotated bibliography of Shakespearean scholarship and productions that lists a significant number of works important to Renaissance literature generally. The international coverage (120 languages) encompasses books, articles, dissertations, productions, films, computer software, and reviews of the foregoing—in short, anything that is related to the study of Shakespeare. Basic Search allows users to search by keyword; Advanced Search allows searches by keyword, title, author, persons other than authors, publisher or journal, date, version, type of document, language, and year. ”

“ JEEVES AND THE CHUMP CYRIL You know, the longer I live, the more clearly I see that half the trouble in this bally world is caused by the light-hearted and thoughtless way in which chappies dash off letters of introduction and hand them to other chappies to deliver to chappies of the third part. It's one of those things that make you wish you were living in the Stone Age. ”

“ Let us compare the different ways in which Crabbe and Foster (certainly a prose poet) deal with a library. Crabbe describes minutely and successfully the outer features of the volumes, their colours, clasps, the stubborn ridges of their bindings, the illustrations which adorn them, so well that you feel yourself among them, and they become sensible [336] to touch almost as to sight. But there he stops, and sadly fails, we think, in bringing out the living and moral interest which gathers around a multitude of books, or even around a single volume. ”

“ A good book for a library, speaking of the book as to its wearing qualities and as to the comfort of its users, is printed on paper which is thin and pliable, but tough and opaque. Its type is not necessarily large, but is clear-cut and uniform, and set forth with ink that is black, not muddy. ”

“ Until some additional light can be shed upon this matter, dogmatism either on the one side or the other would be imprudent; but, while sympathising to some extent with the position taken up by Professor Fraser, we do not see our way clear to dissent from the tradition of Graham’s connection with the chap-book. The idea that he may have been its editor, or compiler, appears to be quite reasonable. ”

“ Formerly, a “Table Book” was a memorandum book, on which any thing was graved or written without ink. It is mentioned by Shakspeare. Polonius, on disclosing Ophelia’s affection for Hamlet to the king, inquires
“When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
—————————— what might you,
Or my dear majesty, your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk, or table-book?”
Dr. Henry More, a divine, and moralist, of the succeeding century, observes, that “Nature makes clean the table-book first, and then portrays upon it what she pleaseth.” ”

“ If the one man for whom the manuscripts had been written had obtained them in order to conceal them, then they were not kept secret in your chamber, and they were not in the hands of those few who, as you now declare, possessed them. ”

“ It appears also in manuscript in the Cottonian library, in the royal library, and in other libraries in Oxford and Cambridge.
The “Philobiblion,” is written in very indifferent Latin, and in a declamatory style. It is divided into twenty chapters. In chapter 1. the author praises wisdom, and books in which it is contained. 2. That books are to be preferred to riches and pleasure. 3. That they ought to be always bought. 4. How much good arises from books, and that they are misused only by ignorant people. 5. That good monks write books, but the bad ones are otherwise employed. ”

“ I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare—or, if not, it's some equally brainy lad—who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping. ”

“ Many critics argue that the numbing fear of his rival’s genius and of its influence on his patron to which Shakespeare confessed in the sonnets was more likely to be evoked by the work of George Chapman than by that of any other contemporary poet. ”

“ In writing the text of a work, the scribe might choose to make use of separate sheets of papyrus, κολλήματα, schedae, and then join them to one another consecutively so as to make up the roll; or he might purchase from the stationers a scapus, or ready-made roll of twenty sheets at most; and if this length were not sufficient, he might add other sheets or scapi, and thus make a roll of indefinite length. ”