José Espasa Anguera

José Espasa Anguera (b. Pobla de Ciérvoles (Lérida), 1840; d. Barcelona July 4, 1911) from a very humble family, and still a child, had to move to Barcelona. There he first was a laborer in a demolition site for the walls of Barcelona. When he was 18 he accepted a job as a paper delivery boy. He was fascinated with the book trade, and learned as much as he could about it. In 1860, he risked his modest savings to establish a small subscription center, the precursor of the Espasa-Calpe publishing house. In this period (1860-77), under the trade name "Espasa Hermanos" (Espasa Brothers), published the "Diccionari de la llengua catalana" (Dictionary of the Catalan Language) by Laberinia. In 1875, the "Poesias catalanas" (Catalan Poems) by Federico Soler, were published, and became the most notable Catalan poetry publication of the era. Mr. Anguera went on to hire the most popular writers of the day. In 1881, he reached an agreement with his brother-in-law, Manuel Salvat to form a new company, Espasa y Compañía (Espasa and Company; 1881-97). In 1886, they left their spacious location on Aribau Street to a much larger building on Cortes Street. In 1897, Salvat left the venture, which until 1908, operated under the name “Jose Espasa” and then until the death of Senior Espasa as “Espasa é Hijos” (Espasa and Sons). His legacy lives on today as the Espasa publishing house--a major publisher of Spanish reference books.