José Espasa Anguera (1840 in

La Pobla de Cérvoles La Pobla de Cérvoles is a village in the province of Lleida and autonomous community of Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' natio ...

(

Lleida Lleida (, ; Spanish: Lérida ) is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It is also the capital city of the Segrià comarca, as ...

) – July 4, 1911 in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

) was a Spanish

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

. He is most famous for having been the driving force behind the prestigious Enciclopedia Espasa. Coming from a very humble rural family, and still a child, he 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 Espasa-Calpe was a Spanish publisher which existed during the 20th century. It was created in 1925, by the union of Editorial Calpe, founded by Nicolás María de Urgoiti in 1918, and Editorial Espasa, founded by José and Pau Espasa i Anguera i ...

publishing house. In this period (1860–77), under the trade name ''Espasa Hermanos'' (Espasa Brothers), published the ''Diccionari de la llengua catalana'' (

Dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

of the

Catalan Language Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern Spa ...

) 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. Espasa 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 “José Espasa” and then until the death of Senior Espasa as “Espasa é Hijos” (Espasa and Sons). Espasa's dream of "a Great (Spanish) Encyclopedia" took shape in 1905, first with the publication of weekly instalments, and, from 1908 onwards, in volumes. The magnitude of this enterprise eventually overwhelmed the publishing house and in 1925 they associated with Calpe; the head offices were moved to

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, and the direction of the company was given to

José Ortega y Gasset José Ortega y Gasset (; 9 May 1883 – 18 October 1955) was a Spanish philosopher and essayist. He worked during the first half of the 20th century, while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism, and dictatorship. His philosoph ...

. Espasa's legacy lives on today as the Espasa-Calpe publishing house—a major publisher of Spanish

reference book A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to f ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Espasa Anguera, Jose 1840 births 1911 deaths People from Garrigues (comarca) Spanish publishers (people)