Popular entertainment, poetry and performance

Cheap print productions have provided popular reading and entertainment for hundreds of years. Early forms included sensationalist literature in short, inexpensive pamphlets known as chapbooks or popular tracts, which were sold on the street by hawkers for a few pence. Common subjects included gruesome accounts of the supernatural, trials and true crime, and the last words of the condemned, delivered directly from the gallows. A Strange, True, and Dreadful Relation, of the Devil's Appearing to Thomas Cox (1684) recounts the story of a Hackney coachman who picked up a gentleman, only for the passenger to transform into "a great black thing in the form of a bear with great flaming eyes" after refusing to pay his fare. The pamphlet was printed by Elizabeth Mallet, a printer and bookseller who, in addition to producing sensationalist tracts, founded Britain’s first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant.

Large-format, single-sheet ‘broadsides’ featuring popular stories and ballads were also in demand. An Old Ballad of Whittington and His Cat (around 1805) tells the well known rags to riches story of Dick Whittington, the 15th century mayor of London whose tale passed into folklore along with the cat that helped him earn his fortune. It was a popular subject for chapbooks and broadsides like this one, often accompanied by woodcut prints illustrating the story. Moral tales for children in illustrated chapbooks were also widely read. A Warning to Profane Swearers (around 1830) presents two stories intended to warn young readers about the dangers of profanity and the importance of telling the truth.

In the 19th century, cheaper book production methods led to a proliferation of printed materials that reflected popular culture, pastimes, and interests. The Art of Fortune Telling, by Cards (around 1840) shows the fad for fortune telling and is a scarce example of provincial printing, having been published in Bideford, Devon. Stage magic was another form of amusement that gave rise to numerous pamphlets and ephemeral items, especially props and instructional guides for learning tricks. One example is Fun Amongst the Matches (around 1911), which used magic tricks as a marketing tool for the match manufacturer Bryant and May. Popular literature and drama were also produced in cheap, accessible formats, such as Dicks' Standard Plays and play scripts sold for individual performances. Popular novels were often adapted, and the cover of the displayed copy of Jane Eyre (around 1880) features a striking illustration of Rochester appearing to Jane in a dream. These rare, ephemeral works do not survive in large numbers and have often been reproduced as facsimiles. The History of Little Fanny was a chapbook with cut out paper doll sheets. The second edition was originally published in 1811 and was issued as a facsimile by the Scolar Press in 1977.

Writers and artists have used spineless formats to self-publish, to experiment and to collaborate, and to combine words and design in engaging ways. Methods of press organisation and publication aesthetics are diverse, but all share a desire for autonomy of creative expression. The maker’s hand is often in evidence via typesetting, colouring, and paper cutting and folding. The creation of such works is labour-intensive and slow, often generating limited print runs.

Modernist writer, publisher and translator John Rodker was one of what is today called ‘The Whitechapel Boys’ group of writers and artists. In 1914, Rodker self-published his first collection, Poems, as a pamphlet, complete with cover art by fellow Whitechapel Boy, painter David Bomberg. The pamphlet was printed by a commercial printing firm, but the distribution was Rodker’s responsibility: “To be had of the author” followed by his home address are printed on the title page.  

From the 19th century onwards, printing technology was increasingly accessible. Portable presses entered the middle-class home, leading to a boom in what was called ‘parlour printing,’ as exemplified by the works of CHO Daniel. Most famous for the works he printed in Oxford, the pamphlet on display (Sir Richard’s Daughter: A Christmas Tale of the Olden Times) is from Daniel’s earlier printing phase, based at his family home in Frome. The 1852 pamphlet, with its simple blue cover wrapper, is anonymous although likely to have been written by Wilson Clement Cruttwell.  

In January 1902, publisher Charles Elkin Mathews produced the first in a two-year monthly series entitled A Broad Sheet, in a single sheet, broadside format. The sheet features poetry by Irish writers George Moore and W.B. Yeats, whose poem Spinning Song was first printed here. The hand coloured illustrations were by Yeats’s younger brother, Jack, and Pamela Colman Smith, who most famously illustrated the Rider-Waite Tarot. 

Also merging poetry and art and printed on a two year monthly schedule was the ‘review of art and letters’ entitled Fishpaste. Printed on postcards (or postcard sized paper) which fitted in a table top Adana printing press, Fishpaste’s first series ran from February 1967 to May 1968. Printed at the Pandora Press by Rigby Graham, Toni Savage and Peter Hoy, each postcard contained a poem on one side and an illustration, usually by Rigby Graham, on the other. The title Fishpaste was chosen as the contents of each issue were a surprise.  

An Adana press was also used in 2019 by Half Pint Press to reimagine Mary Butts’s 1928 modernist novella Imaginary Letters, which centres on eight letters. Half Pint Press’s edition interweaves content and form: each of the novella’s letters is printed as such, using different paper stocks, styles and layouts and enclosed in an envelope. The text was typeset by hand and printed over an 18-month period. 100 copies were made.  

The most limited edition on display is Laura Hellon's Who Finds Cells. The work was created in an edition of ten as part of Hellon’s MA Poetic Practice course at Royal Holloway, University of London, during a time when Hellon was also part of the Crested Tit Collective of poets. This work is entirely without a spine, consisting instead of 18 small, folded slips of paper containing poetic text. The papers are housed within a glass jar, stopped with a cork.  

This display brings together a diverse collection of pamphlets, programmes, and flyers. Formats often dismissed as throwaway or ephemeral, to show how print has long served as a tool for collective voice, protest, and transformation. Across these varied formats runs a common thread: the belief that print can move people to act. Often made quickly, shared hand to hand, and designed for public spaces or communal events, these materials remind us that print is not just a medium of record, but a catalyst for change.

Pamphlets, in particular, have a long history of accessibility and immediacy. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy, reprinted in 1973 by Kropotkin’s Lighthouse Publications, exemplifies this. Although Shelley is a canonical figure in English literature, this edition, with its stitched binding, small format, and limited print run, is often credited as one of the first articulations of peaceable resistance. In pamphlet form, it is stripped of scholarly distance and returned to the street-level activism it was born from.

Unity Theatre’s programmes from the 1940s and ’50s (The Dockers’ Tanner and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists) are small, utilitarian booklets, designed to accompany performances that brought socialist politics to working-class audiences. These modest documents reveal how radical ideas were set in everyday culture. While one programme critiques its play’s propagandist tone, the other praises a lively adaptation of a socialist classic, highlighting the range and ambition of Unity’s political theatre.

Another stitched pamphlet, Ey Up Mi Duck, produced in the 1980s by the Derbyshire Women’s Action Group, gives voice to miners’ wives during the UK’s pit closure crisis. Through poetry and images, it tells the story from the point of view of those not usually heard in mainstream versions. Its hand assembled appearance speaks to its local, collective origins. Community publishing as resistance.

John Brunner’s Songs, printed by “The Broadsheet King” John Foreman, is a stapled pamphlet from the 1970s that revives the ballad tradition for the Cold War era. These songs, distributed cheaply and informally, use lyrical language to critique militarism and nuclear anxiety, their plain paper forms belying the emotional weight within.

Lastly, the photocopied flyer for Divine, a queer icon of punk era performance, captures the aesthetics of nightlife activism. Paired with a leaflet contextualising Divine’s legacy, the materials are intentionally lo-fi, celebrating DIY print culture and queer ephemera. These items show how even the most outrageous performances were deeply rooted in politics, community, and self-expression.