The printed canards were brochures sold to the general public in the large cities of France from the early sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. Serving as a valuable tool for the dissemination of news before and alongside the creation of the periodical press with Renaudot’s Gazette in 1631, the canards are considered “the first works of ‘popular’ printed literature” in France (Chartier, 1989, p. 60). Indeed, their commercial success is likely one of the major inspirations for the creation of the bibliothèque bleue (blue library), traditional French chapbooks with a blue cover printed in the city of Troyes, initially by the brothers Oudot, in the beginning …
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Citation: Liebel, Silvia. "Les canards". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 August 2017 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19449, accessed 21 November 2024.]