I.
List of chap-book romances and tales in order of reference.
(1) Bevis of Southampton.—First English edition, Wynkyn de Worde (a fragment, n.d.)
Chap-book: Sir Bevis of Southampton, London, n.d.
(2) Guy of Warwick.—First English edition, W. Copland (1548-68).
Chap-book: Guy, Earl of Warwick, n.d. (c. 1750).
(3) The Seven Champions of Christendom.—By Richard Johnson (1596).
Chap-book: London, n.d. (c. 1750).
(4) Don Bellianis of Greece.—Earliest edition, 1598. Black Letter.
Chap-book: The History of Don Bellianis of Greece, London, n.d. (c. 1780).
(5) The Famous History of Montelyon. By Emanuel Forde (1633).
Chap-book: The History of Montellion, London, n.d.
(6) Parismus, the Renowned Prince of Bohemia.—1598. Black Letter.
Chap-book: London, n.d. (c. 1760).
(7) The History of Fortunatus.—Stationers’ Register (1615).
Chap-book: London, n.d. (eighteenth century).
(8) Valentine and Orson.—French edition, 1489. Two editions by W. Copland.
(9) Friar Bacon.—Greene’s play, mentioned in Henslowe’s Diary under the years 1591-2 was based on an earlier tract. Eighteenth century chap-book: London, n.d.
(10) The Historyes of Troye.—Caxton, 1477. Folio Black Letter.
Chap-book: Hector, Prince of Troy, London, n.d.
(11) Patient Grissel.—Chap-book: The History of the Marquis of Salus and Patient Grissel, London, n.d. (c. 1750).
(12) The King and the Cobbler.—Chap-book: London, n.d. (King Henry VIII).
(13) The Valiant London Prentice.—“Written for the Encouragement of Youth” by John Shurley. For J. Back, B.L.
Chap-book: “Printed for the Hon. Company of Walking Stationers”, London, n.d. (after 1780).
(14) Tom Long the Carrier (with woodcut of Tudor pedlar), London, n.d.
(15) “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus”, a mediæval tale in Caxton’s Golden Legende.
(16) The History of Laurence Lazy, London, n.d. (eighteenth century).
(17) Joseph and his Brethren.—Chap-book: London, n.d.
(18) The Glastonbury Thorn (Joseph of Arimathea).—Wynkyn de Worde, n.d.
Chap-book: The History of Joseph of Arimathea, n.d. (c. 1740).
(19) The Wandering Jew, etc.
Chap-book (dialogue), London, n.d.
Another chap-book of this sort is The History of Dr. John Faustus (Aldermary Churchyard, n.d.).
“A Ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, the Great Congerer”, was entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1588; and Marlowe produced his play in 1589.
The humour of “topsy-turveydom” dates back to the fourteenth century Land of Cockayne, and survives to-day in nursery-rhymes and “drolls”. “The Wise Men of Gotham” was still popular in the eighteenth century. This famous nonsense-book was written by Andrew Boorde, and a Bodleian copy is dated 1630.
(a) Memoirs of the late John Kippen, “to which is added an Elegy on Peter Duthie, who was for upwards of eighty years a Flying Stationer”.
(b) Mr. R. H. Cunningham, in a note prefixed to his Amusing Prose Chap-books (1889) gives an account of a book-pedlar, Dougal Graham, who hawked books among Prince Charlie’s soldiers in the ’45, and afterwards became an author and printer of chap-books.
The Adventures of Philip Quarll, by Edward Dorrington (1727) was probably inspired by Robinson Crusoe. It was afterwards used to illustrate revolutionary theory. See [Chapter V].
(a)“Chevy Chase”, praised by Sir Philip Sidney for its “trumpet note”, was included in Dryden’s Miscellanies, 1702, in the Collection of 1723 and in Percy’s Reliques, 1765.
(b) The ballad of “The Two Children in the Wood” was printed in 1597 as “The Norfolk Gentleman, his Will and Testament”, etc. There is a prose chap-book of 1700, “to which is annex’d the Old Song upon the same”.
The ballad is included in the collection of 1723.
“The Noble Acts of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; with the Valiant Atchievements of Sir Launcelot du Lake. To the Tune of, Flying Fame”.
The first stanza (of which Falstaff quotes the first line in Henry IV, Part 2) runs thus:
“When Arthur first in Court began,
And was approved King,
By Force of Arms great Victories won,
And conquest home did bring”.
The episode is from Malory.
Other ballads based on romances in the Collection of 1723 are: “St. George and the Dragon”, “The Seven Champions of Christendom”, “The London Prentice” and “Patient Grissel”.
The Percy Folio includes “King Arthur and the King of Cornwall”, “Sir Lancelott of Dulake”, “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine”, “Merline”, and “King Arthur’s Death”.
(a) Legendary ballads in the Collection of 1723 include: “Fair Rosamond”, “King Henry (II) and the Miller of Mansfield”, “Sir Andrew Barton’s Death”, “King Leir and his Three Daughters”, “Coventry made free by Godiva”, “The Murther of the Two Princes in the Tower”, “King John and the Abbot of Canterbury”.
Many others deal with historical themes, such as “The Banishment of the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk”, or with famous battles. “King Henry Fifth’s Conquest of France” probably belongs to the reign of George I.
(b) “The Blind Beggar’s Daughter” was adapted from a favourite Elizabethan ballad, “Young Monford Riding to the Wars”.
There is a prose chap-book, printed by T. Norris, London, 1715.
Other sea-ballads in Child’s collection are:—“The Sweet Trinity” (or, “The Golden Vanity”).—Pepys, 1682-5; “Captain Ward and the Rainbow”,—Roxburghe and Aldermary copies; “The Mermaid” (or, “The Seamen’s Distress”).—Garland of 1765, etc.; “Sir Patrick Spens”.—Percy’s Reliques, 1765, Herd’s Scottish Songs, 1769, and Scott’s Minstrelsy, 1803.