The research has been carried out in the form of a survey of selected European collections aiming to identify and examine items of cheap print, in some cases previously unknown. They have been catalogued, described and interpreted in light of the existing literature in broad fields such social history, literary history and history of education.
The key points that emerged are the following:
- Cheap and ephemeral materials represented a relevant opportunity for children from different backgrounds to read and play with cultural artefacts;
- In many cases well established sub-genres of cheap print were chosen by publishers as formats to experiment with when they were actively searching for new ways to address a segment of the market previously overlooked, that of young people;
- This happened at different paces in different European regions as a consequence of specificities such as religious confessions, schooling systems, advancement of commerce, that were likely to affect the development of a juvenile audience for books and prints; nonetheless some formats and contents appeared in different regions contributing to the development of shared cultural references among different populations;
- These materials possibly represent the most democratic publishing genre in pre-modern book history: they could address peasants, working class audiences, but also children from more affluent families, in that they were easily understandable and enjoyable by semi-literate book users.
The findings have been communicated to a diverse audience through:
- scholarly outputs, both in traditional publications (articles, chapters and a research monograph in preparation) and digital formats (a dataset, a curated collection in a virtual research environment);
- public outreach activities, that have allowed the general audience to learn about the existence of printed items almost unknown to non-experts (pictorial didactic tools, cheaply illustrated booklets and broadsides, paper toys, paper theatres…). This has happened through three different exhibitions (of which one was online) and related activities (publication of a catalogue, guided tours, public launching events).
