Two of this exhibit’s chapbooks have faded blue wrappers (covers) that were probably an enticing blue colour in 1819. Not much research has been conducted on these colourful pieces of paper. One historian has written that, nineteenth-century London booksellers speculated that children were buying some of their cheap books only for the colourful wrappers. It has been hypothesized that children may have traded the colourful wrappers like trading cards.

This may explain why many children’s chapbooks lack the first and last page, which would have been attached to the wrapper. Printed on the back wrapper of both A New Lottery Book and The Rise of Learning is a transformative image – an image that reverses itself when turned upside down. This transformative image may have been part of a lottery-type game. This speculation is because the transformative image is labelled “prize” and “blank.”

Back wrapper (reverse)

A New Lottery Book, page 48.

A prize-blank lottery system was once played in colonial America and probably originated in Britain. This lottery system is described as:

“lotteries were drawn using two containers – one held the numbered tickets and the other corresponding container held the prize and blank tickets.For each numbered ticket drawn, a corresponding prize or blank ticket would be drawn from the other container.”

This prize and blank arrangement on the back wrapper may have contributed to the removal of the chapbook’s cover.