| Sumario: | The present article calculates the share of the publishers and booksellers of the Northern Netherlands in the book market in the Southern Netherlands on the basis of the library catalogue of the Roermond Carthusian monastery Bethlehem of 1740-2. This collection may well be considered to be representative of the collections of other contemplative communities. It appears that the share of the books published in the Republic was very small: only about 3%. As places of production Cologne and Antwerp held a highly predominant position in the theologica,by far the largest proportion (90%) of the collection. In this section the share of the Republic was 0,4%, its share in the non-theologica 10% of the collection)was, however, much higher: 26%. In addition, the gures show that the publishers and booksellers from the Republic (at least, within the non-theologica) particularly supplied the books in the folio and duodecimo formats and held a strong position in the Dutch and French titles. Finally, towards the end of the seventeenth century there is an increase to be seen in the market share. In this period the Carthusians purchased ever fewer books, particularly in the field of non-theologica. However, the publishers and booksellers in the Northern Netherlands were less affected by this policy than their competitors abroad, and that only at a later stage.
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