A small, inexpensive printed booklet or pamphlet popular from the 16th to 19th centuries, containing ballads, stories, or other popular literature.
From Middle English chap meaning 'fellow' or 'merchant,' combined with book. Chapbooks were originally sold by peddlers or 'chaps' in the street; the term refers to both the seller and the product.
Chapbooks were the paperback novels of the Renaissance—cheap, disposable, sometimes crude, but they spread stories and literacy to ordinary people who couldn't afford fancy bound books.
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