Les canards

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Silvia Liebel (Université Paris XIII)
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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 …

2366 words

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 29 March 2024.]

19449 Les canards 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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