Chapbooks
Over 1,000 examples of the chapbooks genre may be found in Archives & Special Collections, dispersed throughout the collections.
The main recreational reading matter of the poor in the 18th and 19th Centuries, these ephemeral booklets are incredibly diverse in subject matter and contain everything from the popular songs of the day to weird and wonderful accounts of meetings with mermaids. The Wylie Collection, for example, is a rich source for chapbooks of Scottish interest.
How to find material in the Chapbooks collection
- Browse through a list of chapbook titles found using the rare books search
- Browse a list of chapbook related subjects (click on a subject for a list of titles)
- Use the chapbooks database hosted on Enlighten: this records over 4,500 titles of chapbooks published in Scotland, with full details of their contents. The database encompasses the holdings of the University of Glasgow, Edinburgh Central Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the University of Stirling.
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Woodcut from The History of the Sleeping Beauty (Sp Coll RB 2499/19)