The University of Guelph and the Centre for Scottish Studies yesterday launched a website to showcase the university’s collection of rare Scottish chapbooks.
These popular booklets, written in the 18th and 19th centuries, contain songs, poems, and short stories. They were sold throughout Scotland by peddlers, called chapmen, before newspapers and other periodicals became widely available.
Collections librarian Melissa McAfee said, “The new website provides free online access to about 600 chapbooks in the U of G library archives — it’s the second-largest collection in North America.”
The website is a collaboration between the U of G Library’s Archival & Special Collections and the Department of History.
A description on the website explains: “Chapbooks were pamphlets of eight to twenty-four pages . . . They featured popular stories of romance, travel, comedy, politics, fairy tales, religion, social customs, and history. Chapbooks were cheap (hence the name ch(e)apbook) and served a market for reading material. They were particularly popular in Scotland, where the songs, ballads, poems, and short stories appealed to a population that was highly literate by European standards.”
You can search or browse the online collection. One of the chapbooks featured is The History of Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper, published in 1852 in Glasgow.
The History of Cinderella is one of more than 600 rare Scottish chapbooks held at the University of Guelph. Image: Scottish Chapbooks, University of Guelph, www.scottishchapbooks.org.
The website also contains digital exhibits and teaching modules for high school history and English teachers with “plans and activities exploring the stories of Cinderella, Mary Queen of Scots and William Wallace.”
While this website will not help us add names and dates to our family tree, it does help us better understand our Scottish ancestors and what may have interested and amused them, and that is almost as important.
Visit the Scottish Chapbooks website to learn more.
Outside of the United Kingdom, U of G has the world’s largest rare book and archival collection on Scottish history, and runs the largest Scottish studies program. U of G is located in Ontario.
Thanks to Christine Woodcock for posting the tip on Twitter.
Hi! I just wanted to let you know that your post has been included in my NoteWorthy Reads post for this week: http://jahcmft.blogspot.com/2015/03/noteworthy-reads-8.html. I never heard of a Chapbook before, but I love finding things that show me bits of how my ancestors lived.