More than 500 years ago, The Friar and the Boy was a children’s bestseller. For a penny, readers were given for a huge sheet of paper, folded into eight and slit to make a book. This bawdy tale was written in around 1450 and first printed in about 1510. It tells the story of a farmer’s son and his revenge upon his wicked stepmother, who is having an affair with a friar. It was in print until the 1820s, the pre-Victorian era, when it was considered too vulgar for children.
