1) Introduction
It is generally aknowledged that the XVIII century was a period of steady increase of the general interest in reading.
This is certainly possible, but it must be clear that the amount of the reading public was still very far from the figures we are used to today. The millions of readers of our era and the globality of the market (it is reckoned that J.K. Rowlings sold over 45 million copies of her best seller saga of Harry Potter) are out of question.
In the 1790s the consistency of the reading public was fixed in 80.000 people, whereas the global population of Britain was of 6 million people. The average weekly circulation of newspapers in 1704 was 43.800 copies. In 1753 the daily circulation of newspapers was 23673 copies. (The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt)
How many books were sold? Not huge amounts. We may reckon that the total amount of book readers was tens of thousands. Of course there were books which managed to sell a lot of thousands of copies in a relatively short period, but rarely the figure of 100.000 was hit.
There is another element, anyway, which suggests that the reading public was growing: the number of the printing presses active in London between 1724 and 1757: they passed from 70 to 200.
In conclusion we may say that the XVIII century was a period of general increase of reading, but we can’t talk of a real boom.