ABSTRACT
At this stage, it may be helpful to say something about the nature of the market and about it evolution during the 18th century. Numerically, French book production is thought to have tripled during the 18th century, so there should have been no shortage of work from at least this point of view. l\1oreovcr, there is little evidence at this period of edition binding, that is, the printer/publisher arranging for the binding up of a whole edition in similar style at one go. The famous J;;ncydopldie could, it is true, be subscribed to as a ready-bound work, but such a binding has not in fact been identified (partly because the publisher's account for the book only show that the work was divided among three binders) - and then the enterprise was, to put it mildly, an unusual one. In general, therefore, binding remained an individual,
retail trade and not a wholesale one. It was equally one conducted on the spot and did not suffer from competition with, for example, cheaper or safer alternative sources abroad as did printing itself. It was essentially artisanal, local and fashionable. Paris was the centre of social life, and binding, while not being in any way avant garde, was undoubtedly part of this, Parisian styles being if anything copied elsewhere in Europe.
