In the 19th century, the “reading revolution” (R. Engelsing), fuelled by the extensive distribution of printed books, fully took hold in France. A sign of literary vitality, this phenomenon nevertheless sparked a wave of negative observations on the decadence of civilisation from as early as 1830. This genuine anomaly can be attributed to the after-effects of the French Revolution, which catapulted the free market for books to the heart of the literary system. The bibliography then gave way to book statistics, which recorded the expansion of the printed word with enthusiasm at first, but later showed an openly declinist pessimism. This ideological illusion, however, masks the real anomaly, which is the preponderant role played by the press to the detriment of publishers – before the censorship of newspapers under Napoléon III then the École républicaine state school system placed books at the centre of literary life.