User:MercedezGE/La Bibliothéque Bleue De Troyes

The spread of literacy in the eighteenth century both fueled and reflected an explosion of print culture. The sheer volume of published material increased dramatically, from books, newspapers, and periodicals down to broadsheets, handbills, and political cartoons.

The Bibliothéque Bleue is a large collection of cheap printed books that owed its name to the grayish blue cover in which all the texts were bound. The texts were often worn and mismatched, illustrated with woodcuts that had already seen long service, sewn and covered with the familiar blue paper, although, sometimes black, red, or marbled papers were also used. Early in the seventeenth century publishers began to produce small books wrapped in blue sugar paper that were sold throughout France by peddlers. The peddlers played a vital part in distributing the printed word to unprivileged members of society, especially to the peasants. The peddlers stock was made up largely of booklets from the Bibliothéque Bleue, almanacs, broadsheets and popular print. The book trade was dominated by the Oudot family; however, other bookseller-publishers followed suit in Paris and Rouen. The Oudot family inaugurated and profited from the Bibliothéque Bleue, they sold their books to peddlers on a sale-or-return basis. The booklets published by the Bibliothéque Bleue were inexpensive and sold in massive numbers.