Chapbooks

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31653, 13 April 1968, Page 4

Chapbooks

The Penny Histories. Collected and Edited by Victor E. Neuburg. Oxford University Press. 206 pp. Bibliography.

I Mr Neuburg’s work is the I second volume in the Juvenile ; Library series, and is subtitled, “A Study of ChapI books for Young Readers : over two Centuries.” Chapt books (thought to be a cor- . ruption of “cheap books”) I have been described by the i writer Lamb as, “the old clas- : sics of the nursery.” And so ! they were these small : crudely-bound books with . titles like, “The Children in > the Wood,” “Peep at Vari- • ous Nations.” and “Cock ! Robin,” were widely read by ■ the poorer classes in i eighteenth-century England ; and were sold by itinerant ; pedlars. The young readers of the period, especially, de- • lighted in these stories of romance and adventure. Mr : i Neuburg devotes the first half !of the book to a treatise on I the origins and form of these chapbooks or “penny histories,” and illustrates his findings, in the second part of the book, with facsimile reproductions of penny histories collected from the British Museum and the New York Public Library. The quaint illustrations are wood-cuts and drawings copied from publications of the time.