Pamphlet

An 18th-century painting of a girl with a basket of pamphlets

Due to their low cost and ease of production, pamphlets have often been used to popularize political or religious ideas.

Apamphletis an unboundbook(that is, without ahard coverorbinding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet ofpaperthat is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called aleafletor it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half andsaddle stapledat the crease to make a simple book.

For the "International Standardization of Statistics Relating to Book Production and Periodicals",UNESCOdefines a pamphlet as "a non-periodicalprinted publication of at least 5 but not more than 48 pages, exclusive of the cover pages, published in a particular country and made available to the public "and abookas "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages, exclusive of the cover pages". The UNESCO definitions are, however, only meant to be used for the particular purpose of drawing up their book production statistics.

Etymology

The wordpamphletfor a small work (opuscule) issued by itself without covers came intoMiddle Englishc.1387 aspamphiletorpanflet,generalized from a twelfth-centuryamatory comic poemwith an old flavor,Pamphilus, seu de Amore( "Pamphilus: or, Concerning Love" ), written inLatin.Pamphilus's name is derived from the Greek nameΠάμφιλος,meaning "beloved of all".The poem was popular and widely copied and circulated on its own, forming a slimcodex.

History

The pamphlet form of literature has been used for centuries as an economical vehicle for the broad distribution of information.

See also:Pamphlet wars

The earliest appearance of the word is inThe Philobiblon(1344) ofRichard de Bury,who speaks of "panfletos exiguos"{"little pamphlets"} (ch. viii.).

Its modern connotations of atractconcerning a contemporary issue was a product of the heated arguments leading to theEnglish Civil War;this sense appeared in 1642.In some European languages, this secondary connotation, of a disputatious tract, has come to the fore: comparelibelle,from the Latinlibellus,denoting a "little book".

Pamphlets functioned in place ofmagazinearticles in the pre-magazine era, which ended in the mid-nineteenth century. There were hundreds of them in the United States alone. They were a primary means of communication for people interested in political and religious issues, such asslavery.Pamphlets never looked at both sides of a question; most were avowedlypartisan,trying not just to inform but to convince the reader.

Purpose

A 1918 Finnishpropagandapamphlet signed byGeneral Mannerheimcirculated by theWhitesurging theRedsto surrender during theFinnish Civil War.English:To the residents and troops ofTampere!Resistance is hopeless. Raise thewhite flagand surrender. The blood of the citizen has been shed enough. We will not kill like the Reds kill their prisoners. Send your representative with a white flag.

Pamphlets can contain anything from information on kitchen appliances tomedical informationand religious treatises. Pamphlets are very important inmarketingbecause they are cheap to produce and can be distributed easily to customers. Pamphlets have also long been an important tool ofpoliticalprotestandpolitical campaigningfor similar reasons.

Apamphleteeris a historical term for someone who produces or distributes pamphlets, especially for a political cause.

Collectibility

Due to theirephemeralnature and to the wide array of political and religious perspectives given voice by the format's ease of production, pamphlets are prized by manybook collectors.Substantial accumulations have been amassed and transferred to ownership of academicresearch librariesaround the world.

Particularly comprehensive collections of American political pamphlets are housed atNew York Public Library,theTamiment LibraryofNew York University,and theJo Labadiecollection at theUniversity of Michigan.

Commercial uses

The pamphlet has been widely adopted in commerce, particularly as a format formarketingcommunications. There are numerous purposes for pamphlets, such as product descriptions or instructions, corporate information, events promotions or tourism guides and they are often used in the same way as leaflets or brochures.

See also

• Chapbook
• Flyer (pamphlet)
• Folded leaflet
• Long-form journalism

External links

• Randy Silverman, 1987. "Small, Not Insignificant: a Specification for a Conservation Pamphlet Binding Structure",The Book and Paper Group Annual6.Historical overview focusing on pamphlet binding.
• 19th Century British Pamphlets Online.Information about a project that digitised 26,000 19th century pamphlets from UK research libraries.
• 19th Century Pamphlet Collection.Collection of 19th-century pamphlets, predominantly of Irish interest and covering a broad spectrum of subjects. A UCD Digital Library Collection.
• 19th Century Social History Pamphlets Collection.Collection of pamphlets relating to 19th century Irish social history, particularly the themes of education, health, famine, poverty, business and communications. A UCD Digital Library Collection.
• Tedder, Henry Richard (1911)."Pamphlets".InChisholm, Hugh(ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 659–661.This contains an extensive history of the pamphlet form from the 14th century, in England, France, and Germany.