CHAP BOOKS, the name given to a variety of old and scarce tracts of a homely kind, which at one time formed the only popular literature. In the trade of the bookseller, they are distinguishable from the ordinary products of the press by their inferior paper and typography, and are reputed to have been sold by chapmen (see CHAP31.A.N) or peddlers; hence their designation. The older C. B. issued in the early part of the 17th c. are printed in black letter, and are iu the form of small volumes. Those of a later date are in the type now in use, but are equally plain in appearance. Of either variety, they were mostly printed in London; many being without dates. They were of a, mis cellaneous kind, including theological tracts, lives of heroes, martyrs, and wonderful personages, interpretations of dreams, fortune-telling, prognostications of the weather, stories of giants, ghosts, hobgoblins, and witches, histories in verse, and songs and bal lads. See .Yotices of 114itice .tracts and Chap Books, also .7)cocriptice ..Ztiotices of Popular English Histories; both by J. 0. Halliwell, printed for the Percy society. An inferior class of tracts succeeded these books for the common people. and are best known as Penny Chap Books. For the most part they consisted of a single sheet, duodecimo, or 24 pages. Besides the title, the first page usually contained a coarse wood-cut embel lishment. The paper was of the coarsest kind adapted for printing, and the price, as the name imports, was a penny each. The subjects besides being of a similar nature to the above, included stories of roguery- and broad humor. These penny 0 B. were issued by an obscure class of publishers in London and several English provincial towns, of which we might particularize Newcastle-on-Tyne. They were also issued from the
presses of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Falkirk, and Paisley. It is a curious fact, that nearly all the penny C. B. of this very homely kind which were latterly popular, were written, toy Dougald Graham, who, previous to his death in 1779, filled the office of bellman or town-crier of Glasgow. The most reputable production of this humble genius was a History of the Rebellion in a Hudibrastic meter, which was a great favorite with sir Wal ter Scott, and is now scarce; see Chambers's Journal, first series, vol. x. p. 84; also the Paisley llagarine (1829), an extinct publication of great rarity, in which is given a biographic sketch of Dougald Graham, with a list of his productions. In some parts of Scotland and the n. of England, Graham's penny C. B. are still seen on stalls at mar kets; but the general advances in taste, along with the diffusion of an improved liters tune, have displaced them in almost all other quarters. Collections of the older C. B are now found only in the libraries of bibliomaniacs, by whom they have been picked up at extravagant prices from dealers in second-hand books. In various continental countries, there are numerous varieties of C. B. at exceedingly small prices. The French government being desirous to substitute a wholesome class of tracts of this kind for what are generally- objectionable on the scoae of taste and morality, have latterly-, through commissioners, taken some steps on the subject. See Histoire des Livres Popu Mires, ou de la Litterature du Colportage, by 31. Nizard. w. c.