Why did their number increase so greatly? Who read them? How were pamphlets different from other media? In short, I began to view pamphlets not as repositories of historical facts but as a historical phenomenon in their own right. 3 I have looked for answers to these questions in governmental and church records, private letters, publishing records and related materials about printers, booksellers, and pamphleteers, and of course in pam­ phlets themselves. Like so many other students of the early press and its products, I discovered only scattered, incomplete images of actual con­ ditions, such as the readership or popularity of pamphlets. On the other hand, I found much material which reflected what people believed about "little books.