Back in Ye Olde Times of…Olde, around the 16th century, chapbooks were short pamphlets printed on awful paper and sold to the public for cheap prices. They consisted of a theme and included even more awful woodcut illustrations that sometimes didn’t have anything to do with the text.

Imagine if you will a 16th-century printers in some lady’s basement: “Hey Harold, we’ve got this pamphlet giving the chronology of women’s hair fashion since the time of Edward I. What picture d’you wanna put in it?” Harold sifts through the woodcuts he produced over a drunken weekend at the Cock and Spaniel. “Here’s one of a pig farting bubbles of tar.” “Perfect.”

Oftentimes, salesmen called Chapmen distributed these “lytle books” in pubs, on the streets, or in the marketplace. It was a great way to disseminate information to the common peoples, especially those who lived in rural areas. With their unsophisticated narratives and entertainment-heavy content, Chapbooks are mostly seen as a glimpse into old pop culture.

During the 19th-century, Chapbooks slowly lost the war against popular newspapers and religious societies, who thought them “ungodly”. They were also unfortunately brittle, since they were made with the worst quality products, so most of them didn’t survive long.

“Harold, Harold. Put that parchment down. There’s a perfectly good piece of spider web in the corner you can use. Oh, and don’t buy ink–go get water from the privy.” “K.”

But despite the title of this post, Chapbooks aren’t the stuff of legend. They still exist, and in high quantities. Most are still DIY-ed and hand-bound with needle and thread, hand-printed, or even created as e-chaps. They’re cheap and an easy way for poets and writers to distribute their work. They also make fun collectibles.

Or apparently outfits.