Description
48mo, 115mm x 75mm, non-paginated. Pale brown paper cover, single sheet folded to make 16 pages; unevenly bound with stitched binding; some slight marks and page edges chipped, good cond overall. This 200 year old chapbook is illustrated by woodcuts with a vignette on the front cover, full page illustration on the rear cover and smaller illustrations throughout. The publisher was known for cleverly adapting children’s stories and poems. The town of Banbury was noted for producing toy books and printed matter for juvenile readers. A list of titles published is printed on the insides of the front cover. These chapbooks are a fragile but ever so beautiful reminiscence of very early English children’s books for the princely price of one penny as stated on the cover. How they survived to the present day as softcovers is truly amazing as of course they were printed as cheap reading for the poor and less “well to do” with no aim at longevity. Hand cut and stitching still in good order, this is a very neat and well preserved example of a “paperback” sold by an early 19th century “chapman”.