Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also linen and draper) a newspaper.

1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Linen and draper: Newspaper.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 234: The linen-drapers gave him the office that the chase had not been taken up.
1953		J. Franklyn Cockney 294: He may [...] inquire if anyone has got a linen draper in his sky-rocket (newspaper in his pocket).
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 74: Obviously what the linens call a national disaster of the first magnitude had occured.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 15: I was having a butchers through the ‘wanted ads’ in the evening linens.
1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog 13: ’E wraps the Lilian Gish in some linen draper an orf I scapa flow.
1976		(ref. to 1940s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 164: I’m going to read me linen and then get some Bo-Peep.
1981		P. Wright Cockney Dialect and Sl. 103: linen draper ‘paper’.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 294: I know some guys who will be anxiously [...] scanning the linen drapers this morning.

2. (a piece of) paper.

1927

Hartlepool Northern Dly Mail 28 Jan. 5/5: I heard a coffee stall customer ask [...] for a ‘Once or twice of Sexton Blake, please’ and the proprietor said, ‘Will you have it in your German or the linen draper?’.