Despite the scarcity of available archival material concerning the 19th-century book trade (editions, prints, readership, sales, prices, etc.), some general facts, developments and trends can be pointed out.

The independence of the Belgian nation state in 1830, following Austrian (1715-95), French (1795-1815) and Dutch domination (1815-30), opened the possibility for a “new” literature to be created – in “Flemish” Netherlandic, yet distinct from the (“Dutch”) Netherlandic literature of the (Northern) Netherlands. At the time, French was the established dominant language in the Southern Netherlands, despite the reign of the Dutch King William I (1815-30), which had been too brief to regenerate a Dutch-language publication culture in the Southern Netherlands from its very modest ancien-régime antecedents.

Nor was the position of the Flemish language propitious for the establishment of such a literature. Despite the freedom of speech that was constitutionally stipulated, French remained the dominant language in societal, administrative and cultural domains. The prestige of the French language combined with the high illiteracy rate amongst the Flemish population was a hindrance to the development of a Flemish literary infrastructure and publication culture. It took seven years after Belgian independence until the first non-anonymous Flemish-language books were published in the new Belgian nation state: the novel In ’t wonderjaer (“In the miraculous year”) and the verse collection Eigenaerdige verhalen (“Strange stories”), by, respectively, Hendrik Conscience and Theodoor Van Ryswyck, marked the beginning of a new Flemish, Dutch-language literature in 19th-century Belgium.

One of the factors that hampered the development of a Flemish publication culture was the extremely small Flemish-speaking readership in 19th-century Belgium. This consisted mostly of middle-class townspeople, since the upper classes only read French and the lower classes and peasantry were largely illiterate – in 1843 circa 51% of the Flemish population. The situation began to change around 1850. Following the abolition of a tax on newspapers (the so-called dagbladzegel), more daily and weekly magazines were published at lower prices. The illiteracy rate declined slightly and readership increased, also because of improved schooling. Given the high illiteracy rate, oral culture was strongly anchored in Flemish public life: texts were often read aloud in family circles or gatherings at public houses or taverns. Periodicals, newspapers, almanacs and magazines – published in relatively large numbers – were preferred over novels or verse collections; not only because they were more suited to be read aloud, but also because they addressed matters more directly connected to the social environment of the population.

The Flemish book trade also suffered from pirated (contrefaçon) reprinting, flooding the Flemish literary market with cheap editions, especially of popular French authors like Alexandre Dumas or Eugène Sue. Lucrative business though they were for publishers, such pirated publications stifled the emergence of an independent Walloon literary market, which had to compete for the French-speaking Belgian readership, and in the Flemish part of the country facilitated French reading at the expense of Flemish-language publication culture. In these circumstances, and given the restricted readership and minimal profit margins, writing and publishing in Flemish was a deliberate cultural-nationalist act.

The Convention franco-belge, legally enacted in 1854, officially ended the practice of contrefaçon and settled the rights and obligations of authors and publishers. Plagiarism remained a point of (heated) discussion, especially during the so-called Nederlandsche Taal- en Letterkundige Congressen (Netherlandic Language and Literature Conferences), eventually leading to a Dutch-Belgian agreement concerning kopijrecht (“copyright”). This was the precursor of the auteursrecht (“intellectual property right”) enacted in Belgium in 1886. (Generally, in the 19th century all literary work became public property 20 years after the death of the author.)

An important impediment to the Flemish book trade was the absence of libraries and reading societies. (There were many literary societies in Flanders, but it has not yet been established whether they had their own lending libraries.) An illustrative example is that of the cabinet de lecture of Henry Ratinckx in Antwerp. Whereas he printed and distributed a few hundred Dutch-language books during the period of United Netherlandic rule (besides a great deal of French works), in 1838 and in 1861 (when the name of the reading room had been changed to Ratinckx frères) he only offered French books. There were some Flemish-language initiatives such as the boekerijen (“libraries”) of the daily paper De broedermin (“Brotherly love”) and of the literary society Hoop in de toekomst (“Hope in the future”); in 1863 Anton Bergmann and Domien Sleeckx founded a volksbibliotheek (“popular library”) in Lier. These isolated initiatives stand in contrast to the flourishing culture of reading societies in the Netherlands.

A significant impulse was given by the Willemsfonds (Willems Foundation, named after Jan Frans Willems), which founded its own library in 1865. Its political orientation was liberal, which was counterbalanced by the foundation in 1867 of a Catholic counterpart, the Davidsfonds (“David Foundation”, named after Jan Baptist David). Both societies played an important role in the development of a Flemish literary culture, while also contributing to the confessional diffraction (between Catholic, Liberal and Socialist “pillars”) of the Flemish literary infrastructure.

The professions of printer, publisher, and bookseller were not yet strictly separated at the time. Most Flemish “publishers” were primarily printers or booksellers, which meant that the commercial risk of publishing books was generally shouldered by the authors themselves; among the exceptions were the publishers/printers Van Dieren (Antwerp) and Buschmann (Antwerp) and the publishers/booksellers Rogghé (Gent), Hoste (Gent), De Meester (Roeselare) and De Seyn-Verhoughstraete (Roeselare). Publishing houses concentrated mainly on well-known authors such as Conscience (whose works were published by Van Dieren). Alongside Van Dieren, Buschmann was one of the most important Flemish publishers of the century, especially because of the extraordinary typography and layout of his book works. The books he published in 1843-50 were amongst the finest specimens of Romantic typography in Belgium.

The emancipation of the profession of publishing – beside that of printer or bookseller – was a slow and gradual process, which only fully broke through by the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, with the commercialization and the professionalization of the printing and publishing business. In those years, the illiteracy rate began to decline significantly and the readership for Flemish literature increased. Publishers were able to meet increasing demand thanks to new printing techniques, new ways of illustrating books, and new business and marketing models. In the new century, a new era had opened in the Flemish book trade and Flemish-language books could be produced and distributed at a lower cost and on a larger scale.