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The “Bibliothèque utile” (1859–1914) was a pioneering popularization publishing collection. Hosted by four publishers (Dubuisson, Pagnerre, Germer-Baillière, and Alcan), it was targeted at an audience of adults with primary education who wished to learn about various subjects. This article shows the implementation of a possible self-education, especially in the books signed by its founders, H. Leneveux and A. Corbon, themselves self-taught and heirs of workers’ associationism, before analyzing the inciting peritextual editorial discourse. Based on some examples of books, the article examines the way the collection proposed itself to an audience that it tried to forge and to define. It also shows the evolution of its reception in a changing educational landscape.