Small books and pleasant histories: Popular fiction and its readership in seventeenth-century England
Illustrations Abbreviations Acknowledgements Dedication Preface 1. The mental world of the peasant reader 2. Elementary education and the acquisition of reading skills 3. Direct and indirect evidence for readership of the chapbooks 4. The fortunes and the volume of stock of the chapbook publishers 5. The distributors: pedlars, hawkers and petty chapmen 6. The content of Samuel Pepys's collection and the bibliotheque bleue 7. Small merry books: courtship, sex and songs 8. Portraits of society: historical and chivalric novels 10. Conclusion Appendix Index.