The Cheap Repository Tracts was a series of around 120 political and religious tracts

Tract (literature)

A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They are...

 published between March 1795 and December 1797, for sale or distribution to literate poor people, as an alternative to the ‘corrupt and vicious little books and ballads which have been hung out of windows in the most alluring forms or hawked through town and country.’ A scheme for their production and distribution was drawn up by Hannah More

Hannah More

Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

 .The tracts pointed out the pitfalls of drunkenness, debauchery, idleness

Idle

Idle is a term which generally refers to a lack of motion and/or energy.- Uses :In describing a person or machine, idle means the act of nothing or no work...

, gambling

Gambling

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

, riotous assembly

Riot

A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...

, and seeking to rise above one’s station

Social status

In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....

, whilst simultaneously praising the virtue

Virtue

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

s of honesty

Honesty

Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft....

, industry

Diligence

Diligence is steadfast application, assiduousness and industry — the virtue of hard work rather than the sin of careless sloth.Diligent behaviour is indicative of a work ethic — a belief that work is good in itself....

, thrift, patience

Patience

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the...

 and an acceptance

Acceptance

Acceptance is a person's agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition without attempting to change it, protest, or exit....

 of one’s pre-ordained place in society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

, by means of simple ballads and short stories. Approximately one third of them are designated as ‘Sunday Reading’ and containing simplified Bible stories or else a more specifically religious message. They were published as either 12 or 24 page chapbook

Chapbook

A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...

s or else broadside ballads, and emulated traditional forms of Street literature

Street literature

Street literature or broadsides began in the 16th century and continued until the mid-19th century as a type of printing of large printed sheets of paper, designed to be plastered onto walls...

. They were extremely successful and it has been estimated that 2,000,000 were sold each year.

Background

Following the success of Hannah More's

Hannah More

Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

 Village Politics (1792), a rebuttal of Thomas Paine's

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

 Rights of Man

Rights of Man

Rights of Man , a book by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in...

, she decided that an entire series could be undertaken. Only a small proportion of the tracts were political in content; they were more rather an attempt to reform the morals of the working classes, “adopting the forms, writing styles, and even distribution channels of popular literature.”

More, drew up her scheme for publishing such works in the West Country

West Country

The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...

 during 1794 and circulated among her friends who encouraged her to extend it to cover the whole country and appoint a London distributor. She began to secure subscriptions to underwrite the project and an informal committee was formed with Henry Thornton as Treasurer and a printed prospectus issued.

Publication

Publication commenced in March 1795; ‘there had never been anything like it in the history of English books. In the first six weeks (March 3 – April 18, 1795) 300,000 copies were sold at wholesale; by July of the same year, the number had more than doubled; and by March , 1796, the total number had reached the staggering figure of 2,000,000. According to the ‘Advertisement’ prefacing one of the collected editions of the tracts:
Many persons exerted their influence, not only by circulating the tracts in their own families, in schools, and among their dependants, but also by encouraging booksellers to supply themselves with them; by inspecting retailers and hawkers, to whom they gave a few in the first instance, and afterwards directed them in the purchase; also by recommending the tracts to the occupiers of stalls at fairs, and by sending them to hospitals, workhouses, and prisons. They were also liberally distributed among soldiers and sailors, through the influence of their commanders.

Under More’s original scheme, the tracts were printed and sold by Samuel Hazard, a printer of Bath, with John Marshall (publisher)

John Marshall (publisher)

John Marshall was a London publisher who specialized in children's literature, chapbooks, educational games and teaching schemes. He described himself as 'The Children's Printer' and referred to children as his 'young friends' He was the preeminent children's book publisher in England from about...

 as the principal London stockist together with Richard White a bookseller in Westminster. By April 1795 Marshall and Hazard were unable to cope with the extraordinary demand for the tracts. Marshall and Hazard shared the printing, and in Dublin, William Watson, the 'Printer of the Association for Discountenancing Vice and Promoting the Knowledge and Practice of Religion and Virtue,’ was also appointed ‘Printer to the Cheap Repository’ and permitted to reprint the titles. Early in 1796 printing in two centres was found to be uneconomic, and so Marshall, who had the larger business, became the printer and Hazard was demoted to become a distributor. At the same time John Elder, an Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 bookseller, was appointed to assist with the distribution in ‘the distant counties’. Individual tracts were also taken to America and reprinted there. The tracts proved to be popular with the middle classes and gentry, and collected volumes were issued at the end of each year.

Authorship

More than one half were written by Hannah More

Hannah More

Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

 who designed the scheme, others were written by her sisters and her friends. A further six were perhaps written by her sister Sarah, others by evangelical friends such as the poet William Mason

William Mason

William Mason may refer to:*William Mason , American engineer and inventor working for Remington, Colt, and Winchester*William Mason , American composer and pianist...

, the philanthropists and campaigners against slavery Zachary Macaulay

Zachary Macaulay

Zachary Macaulay was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of the Rev. John Macaulay Zachary Macaulay (2 May 1768 – 13 May 1838) was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of...

, John Newton

John Newton

John Henry Newton was a British sailor and Anglican clergyman. Starting his career on the sea at a young age, he became involved with the slave trade for a few years. After experiencing a religious conversion, he became a minister, hymn-writer, and later a prominent supporter of the abolition of...

, and Henry Thornton, or William Gilpin, the artist and writer on the picturesque. A few titles were condensed versions of existing well-known works, such as Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...

’, Divine Songs or Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...

’s The History of the Plague in London in 1665, or else retellings of Bible stories. The scheme was subsidised by subscriptions from supporters enabling the publications to be sold at below cost prize.

The end of the scheme and Marshall’s continuation

Hannah More decided to end the official series of tracts with those for December 1797. This may have been due to a disagreement with Marshall, or because the strain of the work involved was ‘affecting Hannah More’s fragile health’, as she was ‘often driven to the necessity of furnishing three titles myself.’ She also appointed another man, John Evans, ‘Printer to the Cheap Repository,’ and although he only ever printed eleven new titles after 1797, he continued to reprint the existing titles, which were still selling well.

John Marshall, who had devoted his business to the production and distribution of the tracts and owned the woodcuts, threatened to sue. It would be a further year before negotiations were completed and the original woodcuts handed over to the new publishers. Marshall then decided to issue his own series of 73 Cheap Repository Tracts over the next two years, finishing in December 1799. These looked very similar to the originals and have often been confused with them. Marshall’s tracts were publicly disowned by the original committee in newspaper advertisements.

The collected volumes of the original series of Cheap Repository Tracts were reprinted until the 1830s and individual tracts until the 1840s.

Resources

• Altick, Richard D. ‘’The English common reader’’ University of Chicago Press, 1957,
• ‘’Cheap Repository for Moral and Religious Publications’’, [a prospectus] : London: J. Marshall, [1795?]. ESTC T030543.
• Cheap repository shorter tracts, (F. and C. Rivington, 1798), ESTC T030544.
• Jones, Mary G. ‘’Hannah More’’, (Cambridge University Press, 1952)
• Kelly, Gary. "Revolution, Reaction, and the Expropriation of Popular Culture: Hannah More's Cheap Repository." Man and Nature 6 (1987): 147-59.
• Myers, Mitzi. "Hannah More's Tracts for the Times: Social Fiction and Female Ideology." Fetter'd or Free? British Women Novelists, 1670-1815. Eds. Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986.
• Pedersen, Susan, ‘Hannah More Meets Simple Simon: Tracts, Chapbooks, and Popular Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century England,’ The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 84-113.
• Scheuerman, Mona. In Praise of Poverty: Hannah More Counters Thomas Paine and the Radical Threat. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
• Spinney, G. H. 'Cheap Repository Tracts; Hazard and Marshall edition,' The Library, Vol. 20, 4th Series, (1939–40), pp. 295–340.
• Stott, Anne, Hannah More the first Victorian, (Oxford: O.U.P., 2003),
• Vallone, Lynne. "'A humble Spirit under Correction': Tracts, Hymns, and the Ideology of Evangelical Fiction for Children, 1780-1820." The Lion and the Unicorn 15 (1991) 72-95.
• Weiss, Harry B. "Hannah More’s Cheap Repository Tracts in America," Bulletin of the New York Public Library 50.7 (1946), and 50.8 (1946).