The studies of French popular productions hesitate to take into account the years 1830-1850, which were identified at the beginning of the media era with the launch of La Presse in 1836 and the emergence of ‘industrial’ literature since the designation of Sainte-Beuve in 1839. If themes and codes are readily identified later in the criminal narrative, novel adventure or comic strip, we rarely go beyond the axiological perspective brought about by the clear-cut designation, further reinforced by the bourdieusian modelling into two production sub-fields. However, the so-called ‘industrial’ literature raises fundamental questions in the light of recent achievements in cultural, media and socio-historical studies. In his case, there are significant circulations between publishers, reading firms and pittoresque deposits, prolongations of the practice of pairing in a context that oscillates between idealisation and stigmatisation of the people, and the widespread and international dissemination of certain works such as urban mystery. The foliage, deliveries and novels call for serial appropriation, even if it is not as formalised as with the collections and fascicules of the following century. Market culture is not yet triumped, but benjaminian fantasmagorie and derived products are already under way. The authors are not akin to stars, but some experience a vedettarisation through the press and image. The productions predate the Paris universal exhibitions and the invention of the cinema, but they take part in the start of leisure and mass performances (panoramas, dioramas), in dialogue with the devices of the fixed or animated image. Despite these parameters, the period is generally abandoned in favour of the second half of the century in the approach to popular productions. The Communication proposes to reflect on this, avoiding as far as possible the pitfalls of anachronism, the reification of categories and the amalgamation of the definition criteria.