Hornbooks

1440-1580

• Made with metal (silver) ivory and/or gingerbread.
• Wealthy decorated them with jewels.
• The alphabet, Lord's Prayer or a Bible verse were also used.
• They eventually graduated to pairs of letters to start the reading process.

Chapbooks

Introduction - 1580

• Chapbooks were extremely important in the development of this literate society.
• Tales/Adventure
• Picture books (1657) e.g., Orbis Pictus by Johann Amos Comenius.
• Use of family relationships for book covers.

Broadsheets were commonly folded twice or more to make small pamphlets. These were called chapbooks; (cheap books), the dime novels of their day. The popularity of chapbooks reached its height in the eighteenth century. Chapmen were the peddlers who traveled between towns selling ballads and chapbooks. They were later sold at stalls in town markets and cities. Hence the name stall sheets.

Early collections of songs and ballads in chapbooks were known as garlands. These appear as early as 1584 in England when Richard Jones printed A Handefull of pleaseant delites, which contained the ballad Greensleeves. The term was later applied to individual poems and songs.

Ref: http://www.contemplator.com/history/broadside.html