A fair bit of French fiction was published in translation in the late 17thC, but plenty of continental editions would have been available and read in French.

In the 18thC, novels were *not* necessarily portable. Most were thumping great multi-volume editions, using large type and wide margins, for economic reasons. They were highly priced (like modern academic texts) for sale to circulating libraries. Some of the octavos are uncomfortably large to hold in your hand for any length of time, although the duodecimos are easier.

Male/female ownership inscriptions in 18thC novels I’ve examined are about equal. Its possible that ownership (wealth-based, rather than gender) was split 50/50 but circulating library copies were borrowed by more women than men.

Its purely impressionistic, from personal examination, but whilst men far outnumber women in bookplates (recorded more often than signatures), women at least match, and in some classes of work outnumber men in ownership inscriptions, right back to the 17thC.

A lot of research needs to be done on this subject.

IMHO, fairer to say that long prose fiction formalised into a specific physical and textual item that we now recognise as the novel, when the economics and distribution were right, and it became trendy.

A brief mention of Scudery’s Artamene always helps put things in context. It was interactive (Scudery had feedback) and it was published like a soap opera. As modern as any ‘multimedia’ form, yet published in the middle of the 17thC.