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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
chapbook
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A late eighteenth century chapbook type of publication, in this case bound.
▪ It printed prose and verse in broadside and chapbook form till its activities were cut short by the War.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chapbook

Chapbook \Chap"book`\, n. [See Chap to cheapen.] Any small book carried about for sale by chapmen or hawkers. Hence, any small book; a toy book.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
chapbook

also chap-book, 1824, shortened from chap(man) book, so called because chapmen (see cheap) once sold such books on the street. A modern word for a type of old book.

Wiktionary
chapbook

n. A small book, usually made from a single sheet, folded several times, containing poems, ballads or religious tracts

Wikipedia
Chapbook

A chapbook is an early type of popular literature printed in early modern Europe. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklets, usually printed on a single sheet folded into books of 8, 12, 16 and 24 pages. They were often illustrated with crude woodcuts, which sometimes bore no relation to the text. When illustrations were included in chapbooks, they were considered popular prints.

The tradition of chapbooks arose in the 16th century, as soon as printed books became affordable, and rose to its height during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many different kinds of ephemera and popular or folk literature were published as chapbooks, such as almanacs, children's literature, folk tales, nursery rhymes, pamphlets, poetry, and political and religious tracts.

The term "chapbook" for this type of literature was coined in the 19th century. The corresponding French and German terms are bibliothèque bleue (blue book) and Volksbuch, respectively.

The term "chapbook" is also in use for present-day publications, commonly short, inexpensive booklets.

Usage examples of "chapbook".

Real life crimes of passion were the subject of chapbooks and broadsheets which sold in vast quantities long before the development of the crime novel, and surviving examples of these publications which describe the terrible acts of lovers driven to murder, each illustrated with lurid, woodblock illustrations, are now keenly collected.

Museum monographs and chapbooks, perhaps: removed for research, then not returned?

Oh, yesthat old Broadway Water Company survey and the Five Points chapbooks useful?

As he handed over the change and exchanged greetings, he noticed consciously for the first time the romantic novels discreetly displayed in plain covers on the bottom rack at the back of the stall, beneath the eyeline of innocent children and much lower than the racks of books and chapbooks of erotic pictures and fantasies, whose colorful covers were as vivid and public, and as cheerfully explicit, as the stained-glass windows of the meetinghouse.

There are currently six stories in the series, which appear as chapbooks or on CD-ROM, and full details are available from my Web site: www.

There in the Darkness is the longer of the two chapbooks, not only in page count, but also because the smaller typeface crams more words on a page--perhaps too many, depending on your eyesight.

PETER LOVESEY CRIME: Crime of passion PLACE: Surrey and France YEAR: 1985 BRIEFING: Real life crimes of passion were the subject of chapbooks and broadsheets which sold in vast quantities long before the development of the crime novel, and surviving examples of these publications which describe the terrible acts of lovers driven to murder, each illustrated with lurid, woodblock illustrations, are now keenly collected.

Even in his own house he knew they bought illicit goods, and in truth the trade had led to little violence he knew of in their locality, despite what chapbook men and village gossip sometimes said.

Corder Figure' PETER LOVESEY CRIME: Crime of passion PLACE: Surrey and France YEAR: 1985 BRIEFING: Real life crimes of passion were the subject of chapbooks and broadsheets which sold in vast quantities long before the development of the crime novel, and surviving examples of these publications which describe the terrible acts of lovers driven to murder, each illustrated with lurid, woodblock illustrations, are now keenly collected.

She read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the Merry Wives and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she thought over Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches and The most Spiritual Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze.

The first nine Breck Elkins stories in this volume have never been reprinted except in one newspaper and one chapbook.