PAGE FROM A “CHAP-BOOK”
Probably a Dicey product of the eighteenth century
In the early part of the seventeenth century chap-books were 8vos. (sixteen pages of about 5 × 8 inches), but later were reduced to 12mos. (twelve or twenty-four pages of about 4 × 6½ inches). The stories were condensed to fit these small penny books, which were peddled by chapmen. A chapman is described in a “Dictionarie” of 1611 as “A paultrie Pedlar, who in a long packe, which he carries for the most part open, and hanging from his necke before him hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, or other trifling ware to sell.”
Many of the chap-books of the eighteenth century were printed and published at Aldermary-Church-Yard and Bow-Church-Yard, London, by William and Cluer Dicey, afterward C. Dicey only. The Dicey books were better productions than those of their imitators. It is not possible to determine the exact year in which the majority of chap-books were printed, as many title-pages merely read “Printed and sold in London,” etc., or “Newcastle; printed in this present year,” without the formality of the date.
There were also other cheap productions known as broadsides, single sheets about 12 × 15 inches, in most cases printed broadwise of the paper and on one side only.
On December 21, 1620, there landed at Plymouth Rock, in what was afterward the colony of Massachusetts, a band of Puritans from England. These non-conformists, unable conscientiously to obey the laws of their native country, had come to America to worship God in their own manner. Ten years later Governor Winthrop with one thousand Puritans landed at Charlestown, and in the following year these immigrants began to settle Cambridge and Boston. A building for an academy (now Harvard University) was erected at Cambridge in 1638, and in 1639 Stephen Daye began to print there.
For the establishment of this, the first printing office in what is now the United States, Rev. Jesse Glover, a Puritan minister of some wealth, was chiefly responsible. Himself contributing liberally, he solicited in England and Holland sufficient money to purchase a press and types, and June 7, 1638, entered into a contract with Stephen Daye, a printer, to accompany him to the new country. Rev. Glover (with his family, Stephen Daye and the printing outfit) embarked on a vessel for New England, but on the voyage across the ocean he was taken ill and died.
PAGE FROM “DESCRIPTION OF TRADES.” LONDON, 1747
Showing use of decorative bands to separate subjects
The press and types having reached Cambridge were finally placed in charge of Stephen Daye and printing was begun in 1639. The first work produced was “The Freeman’s Oath,” probably a single sheet, and the first book (1640) was the “Booke of Psalmes,” familiarly known as the “Bay Psalm Book.” (The reproduction on the first page of this chapter is from one of these books preserved in the public library, Forty-Second Street, New York.) This book of Psalms is a revision of Ainsworth’s version of 1612, and was in use in New England for upwards of a century, more than fifty editions having been published. The size of the type-page of the first edition is 3¼ × 6¼ inches.