Little Red Riding Hood Chapbook

Chapbooks were flimsy, cheap and readily available small pamphlets which were distributed throughout the British Isles by chapmen, known as the 'running stationers' or itinerant pedlars. The word 'chap' is derived from the Old English 'ceap' meaning barter or bargain. Chapbooks could be purchased for only a few pennies and so were affordable to all except the very poorest people. They were for many the only source of imaginative literature.

Chapbooks were produced as a flat sheet. Some folding and then cutting was required from the purchaser to produce a small booklet of generally eight to 16 pages. Because the little books were produced as cheaply as possible, there are certain crudities in the printing that would not be expected in more expensively produced books. Although the page numbers on the flat sheet appear to have no logical sense, when correctly folded the pages are then sequential.

Chapbooks were originally intended for adults and contained religious or political tracts, in particular relating to the English Civil War. Later they contained more general reading material, including the barest story outline for novels such as Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, and Pilgrim's Progress.

They date back to the 16th century and were published into the 20th century, but their peak was the 19th century, particularly those for children. Versions for children were very quickly produced and included adaptations of fairy stories as well as traditional English tales such as Robin Hood, Jack the Giant Killer and Dick Whittington, as well as nursery rhymes that are still familiar today.

The version of Little Red Riding Hood in this chapbook can be attributed to the translation from the French of Charles Perrault's tales, by English writer and translator Robert Samber (ca. 1682 - 1745) in 1720. Perrault produced the first known published version of Little Red Riding Hood (Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) in 1697 in Histoires et contes du temps pass

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