View source for Pamphlet

{{Short description|Unbound book}}
{{More citations needed|date=February 2024}}
[[File:Girl with a Basket of Pamphlets.jpg|thumb|An 18th-century painting of a girl with a basket of pamphlets]]
[[File:A sermon preached at Fort St. George on the coast of Chormandel in East India, February 21 1668.jpg|thumb|right|Due to their low cost and ease of production, pamphlets have often been used to popularize political or religious ideas.]]

A '''pamphlet''' is an unbound [[book]] (that is, without a [[Hardcover|hard cover]] or [[Bookbinding|binding]]). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of [[paper]] that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and [[Saddle stitch stapler|saddle stapled]] at the crease to make a simple book.

In the "International Standardization of Statistics Relating to Book Production and Periodicals", [[UNESCO]] defines a pamphlet as "a non-[[periodical]] printed publication of 5 to 48 pages, excluding covers, published in a specific country and available to the public," while a [[book]] is "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages, excluding covers." These definitions are intended solely for UNESCO's book production statistics.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Recommendation concerning the International Standardization of Statistics Relating to Book Production and Periodicals: UNESCO |url=https://studyfy.com/ |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120529005737/http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13068&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html |archive-date=2012-05-29 |website=portal.unesco.org}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The word ''pamphlet'' for a small work (''opuscule'') issued by itself without covers came into [[Middle English]] {{circa|1387}} as {{lang|enm|pamphilet}} or {{lang|enm|panflet}}, generalized from a twelfth-century [[Elegiac comedy|amatory comic poem]] with a satiric flavor, ''[[Pamphilus de amore|Pamphilus, seu de Amore]]'' ('Pamphilus: or, Concerning Love'), written in [[Latin]].<ref>[[s.v.]] {{cite OED|pamphlet}}</ref><ref name=OEtDpamphlet>{{OEtymD|pamphlet}}</ref> Pamphilus's name is derived from the [[Greek language|Greek]] name {{lang|grc|Πάμφιλος}}, meaning "beloved of all".<ref>{{LSJ|pa/mfilos|πάμφιλος|ref}}.</ref> The poem was popular and widely copied and circulated on its own, forming a slim [[codex]].

==History==
[[Image:Tooneel van Flora Handel der Floristen in Amsterdam 1637 (Tulip mania).png|thumb|right|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 in ''[[The Philobiblon]]'' (1344; ch. viii) of [[Richard de Bury]], who speaks of "{{lang|la|panfletos exiguos}}" {'little pamphlets'}.<ref>{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Pamphlets |volume=20 |pages=659–661 |first=Henry Richard |last=Tedder }} [Contains an extensive history of the pamphlet form from the 14th century, in England, France, and Germany].</ref>

Its modern connotations of a [[Tract (literature)|tract]] concerning a contemporary issue was a product of the heated arguments leading to the [[English Civil War]]; this sense appeared in 1642.<ref name=OEtDpamphlet/> In some European languages, this secondary connotation, of a disputatious tract, has come to the fore: compare ''[[Libelle (literary genre)|libelle]]'', from the Latin ''libellus'', denoting a "little book".{{efn|In German, French, Spanish and Italian ''pamphlet'' often has negative connotations of slanderous libel or religious propaganda; idiomatic neutral translations of the English, ''pamphlet'' include {{lang|de|flugblatt}} and {{lang|de|broschüre}} in German; {{lang|fr|fascicule}} in French; and {{lang|es|folleto}} in Spanish. In Russian and Romanian, the word {{lang|ru|памфлет}} in Russian Cyrillic; {{lang|ru|pamflet}} in Romanian, also normally connotes a work of propaganda or satire, so it is best translated as "brochure" ({{lang|ru|брошюра}} in Russian; {{lang|ru|broşură}} in Romanian).<ref>{{cite web |title=De definiții pentru pamflet |website=DEX online : Dicționare ale limbii române |url=https://dexonline.ro/definitie/pamflet/definitii}}</ref>}}

Pamphlets functioned in place of [[magazine]] articles 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, [[Slavery in the United States|such as slavery]]. Pamphlets never looked at both sides of a question; most were avowedly [[partisan (politics)|partisan]], trying not just to inform but to convince the reader.

==Purpose==
[[File:LeafletToTampere1918.jpg|thumb|A 1918 Finnish [[propaganda]] pamphlet signed by [[General Mannerheim]] circulated by the [[White Guard (Finland)|Whites]] urging the [[Red Guards (Finland)|Reds]] to surrender during the [[Finnish Civil War]]. {{langx|en|To the residents and troops of [[Tampere]]! Resistance is hopeless. Raise the [[white flag]] and 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 to [[medical record|medical information]] and religious treatises. Pamphlets are very important in [[marketing]] because they are cheap to produce and can be distributed easily to customers. Pamphlets have also long been an important tool of [[political platform|political]] [[protest]] and [[political campaign]]ing for similar reasons.

A [[pamphleteer]] is a historical term for someone who produces or distributes pamphlets, especially for a political cause.

==Collectibility==
{{further|Ephemera#Collecting}}
Pamphlets are prized by many [[book collecting|book collectors]] and [[Ephemera#Collecting|collectors of ephemera]], particularly for the wide array of political and religious perspectives given voice by the format's ease of production. Substantial accumulations have been amassed and transferred to ownership of academic [[research library|research libraries]] around the world:
particularly comprehensive collections of American political pamphlets are housed at [[New York Public Library]], the [[Tamiment Library]] of [[New York University]], and the [[Jo Labadie]] collection at the [[University of Michigan]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Oakley C. |title=Marxism in United States History Before the Russian Revolution (1876–1917) |date=1974 |publisher=Published for A.I.M.S. by Humanities Press |location=New York |isbn=0-391-00326-7|url=https://archive.org/details/MarxismUSHistoryBeforeRussianRev/page/n3/mode/1up|page=vii}}</ref>

==Commercial uses==

The pamphlet has been widely adopted in commerce, particularly as a format for [[marketing]] communications. 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 ==
* [[Brochure]]
* [[Chapbook]]
* [[Flyer (pamphlet)]]
* [[Long-form journalism]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v06/bp06-13.html Randy Silverman, 1987. "Small, Not Insignificant: a Specification for a Conservation Pamphlet Binding Structure", ''The Book and Paper Group Annual'' '''6'''.] Historical overview focusing on pamphlet binding.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100323033230/http://www.britishpamphlets.org.uk/ 19th Century British Pamphlets Online.] Information about a project that digitised 26,000 19th century pamphlets from UK research libraries.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121001041245/https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:2617 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.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140528032815/https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:45000 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.

{{Paper products}}
{{Academic publishing}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Pamphlets| ]]
[[Category:Advertising publications by format]]
[[Category:Paper products]]

[[fr:Tract]]