Survivals in Cheap Print, 1750–1800: Some Preliminary Estimates

This paper seeks to establish some preliminary numbers for the survival rates of some different kinds of cheap print, especially ballads and chapbooks, from the second half of the eighteenth century. The basic method is to compare contemporary booksellers’ lists with modern records of surviving copies, especially ESTC. An important question is whether survival rates can be correlated with price and/or type of content, and whether the publications of certain booksellers have survived better than others. Methodological problems of such a study include variation in sample size, and especially the unreliability of results based on very small samples, and the critical role of collectors in ensuring that publications of this kind survived at all.