Maybe silly question: What did the average person in 19th century Europe read before novels?

I'm currently reading Edwin Frank's Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novels and really enjoying it. Early on he describes the rise of the novel thought the 19th century and it's quick domination of culture and I was curious; what were people reading exactly before the novel?

Was it just poetry, histories, philosophy, The Bible?

I'm not too familiar with the history of reading and Google isn't really helping.