Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century with Facsimiles, Notes, and Introduction by Ashton, John - 1882

London, Chatto & Windus, 1882. Hard Cover. xvi, 486, 32 pages, facsimile woodcuts throughout; 19.5 cm. "Although these Chap-books are very curious, and on many accounts interesting, no attempt has yet been made to place them before the public in a collected form, accompanied by the characteristic engravings, without which they would lose much of their value. They are the relics of a happily past age" carried in the packs of the pedlars, or Chapmen, to every village, and to every home. ...while they were in their prime, they mark an epoch in the literary history of our nation" and they help us to gauge the intellectual capacity of the lower and lower middle classes of the last century. "As before said, their great variety adapted them for every purchaser, and they may be roughly classed under the following heads:"Religious, Diabolical, Supernatural, Superstitious, Romantic, Humorous, Legendary, Historical, Biographical, and Criminal" I have not included Calendars, and I have purposely avoided Garlands, or Collections of ballads, which equally come under the category of Chap-books" I hope I have succeeded in producing a book at once both amusing and instructive, besides having rescued these almost forgotten booklets from the limbo into which they were fast descending." Good+, brown embossed covers decorated in black & gold; spine edges rubbed, edges & corners worn, ink owner name; withal a very nice copy. Stock#OB301.