Banbury Chap Books | Page 4

an interview with Bewick, that delighted with his cuts, he confessed to writing Goody Two Shoes, Tommy Trip, etc. Bewick's daughter supplied this information.
[Illustrations: 31 - 33
Early cuts to Goody Two Shoes. Bewick's frontispiece to Goody Two Shoes.]
Here are two early examples of Thomas Bewick. They were used in a York edition of "A Pretty Book of Pictures for little Masters and Misses, or History of Beasts and Birds by Tommy Trip," etc.
[Illustrations: 41, 42
Miss Polly Riding in a Coach, from Tommy Trip. The Student, from Tommy Trip.]
There was an American edition of Goody Two Shoes, and is very interesting indeed, having a woodcut frontispiece engraved by Thomas Bewick, and was printed at Worcester, Mass., U.S.A., by Isaiah Thomas, and sold wholesale and retail at his book-store, 1787. A copy of this little book sold in London for ￡1 16s.
We also give two other specimens from the J. Newbery editions of Tommy Trip and Goody Two Shoes, both engraved by John Bewick.
[Illustrations: 43, 44
The Student, from Tommy Trip. Margery, from Goody Two Shoes.]
The packmen of the past [see frontispiece of a pack-horse in First Edition only of Bewick's Quadrupeds, 1790] carried in their packs the ephemeral literature of the day, Calendars, Almanacks, and Chep-Books. The Leicestershire pronunciation to this day at markets is "Buy Chep" for Cheap, hence the Chep-side, or Cheape-or Cheapside; otherwise derivation of Chap Men, or Running, Flying, and other mercurial stationers, peripatetic booksellers, pedlers, packmen, and again chepmen, these visited the villages and small towns from the large printers of the supply towns, as London, Banbury, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, etc. The "History of John Cheap, the Chapman," "Parley the Porter," "Stephen of Salisbury Plain," and other favourite tracts, with John Bewick's and Lee's square woodcuts were written by the quaker lady, Hannah More, about 1777, and were first published in broadsheet folio. Some were done by Hazzard, of Bath, others by Marshall, of Bow Lane, Aldermary Church Yard. A most curious collection of chap books did they print, reviving the quaint old "Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green," "Guy, Earl of Warwick," "Seven Champions," "Mother Shipton's Life and Prophecies," "Wise Men of Gothan," "Adam Bell," "Robin Hood's Garland," "Jane Shore," "Joaks upon Joaks," "Strapho, or Roger the Clown," "Whetstone for dull Wits," "St. George and the Dragon," "Jack Horner:" and hundreds of ballads, garlands, carols, broadsheets, songs, etc., were in the collection.
The "Great A and bouncing B Toy Book Factory," was somewhere near Little Britain, the proprietor being John Marshall, who published the famous "Life of a Fly."
[Illustration: 51
Block by Thomas Bewick.]
The "Memoirs of a Peg Top," "Perambulations of a Mouse," 2 volumes with cuts by John Bewick, and a number of other works, some by Mrs. Trimmer, under various pseudonyms, were published in Bow Lane, also many quaint broadsheets, the cuts of which are in this volume.
Hazzard, printer of Bath, who published many works for Dr. J. Trusler, with woodcuts by John Bewick, Lee, and others, also published the cheap repository tracts.
All the following little wood blocks were used in several toy books, sometimes with Bewick's name on the titles, and done from 1787 to 1814, in Dutch flowery and gingerbread gilt paper binding, just like Newbery series.
Early John Bewick Cuts.
[Illustrations: 61 - 66
Tommy Two Shoes. Robin Hood and Little John, pub. Wilson and Spence, York. York Story Books, by Wilson and Spence, circa 1797. Used in the Fables. Used in the Fables]
[Illustrations: 71 - 75
Cut by Lee, on the covers of Rusher's Penny "Banbury's." Two Blocks from Valentine's Gift. 1797. Used by Wilson and Spence, York. Patty Primrose.]
[Illustrations: 81 - 86
From Primrose Prettyface and her Scholars. Two Ballad Cuts, by Green, of Knaresborough. Mrs. Winlove's Rise of Learning. The Concert of Birds, from Tommy Tag.]
[Illustrations: 91, 92
Frontispiece to Tommy Playlove and Joseph Lovebook. Whitfield's Tabernacle, Moorfields, or Spa Fields Chapel. (?)]
In Blade's Life of Caxton, the reader will find interesting examples of the earliest woodcut blocks illustrating the quaint and rare tomes issued by the Almonry, Westminster, also at Oxford. The Robin Hood Garland blocks (circa 1680 or earlier), is one of the earliest provincial blocks with a distinct history. We can trace them in varied collections used by early London and Provincial printers, and in the London Bridge printed Chap Book Literature.
Sutton, printer of Nottingham, issued a curious quarto volume of old woodcuts. He was descended from the celebrated T. Sutton, who founded the Charterhouse. Some twenty-five years ago I went over the very quaint collection with the proprietor, and suggested a volume being issued, but the idea had already been matured by him.
Robert White, the poet and local historian of Newcastle upon Tyne--by whose favour I reprinted Tommy Trip in 1867--has one of the choicest, most comprehensive, and rarest libraries of local stories, garlands, ballads, and chap books, and North country folk-lore children's