[f. chap in CHAPMAN + BOOK.] A modern name applied by book-collectors and others to specimens of the popular literature which was formerly circulated by itinerant dealers or chapmen, consisting chiefly of small pamphlets of popular tales, ballads, tracts, etc.
[Not in Todd 1818.]
1824. Dibdin, Libr. Comp., 238. It is a chap book, printed in rather a neat black letter.
1832. in Webster.
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos (1877), I. xxxiv. 292. A hero of the popular chap-books of old times.
1882. J. Ashton, Chap-Bks. 18th C., in Athenæum, 2 Sept., 302/1. A great mass of chap-books, such as ‘Jack the Giant Killer,’ ‘Long Tom,’ ‘Mother Shipton.’
