Spanish Chapbooks

We are pleased to present this collection of 66 Spanish chapbooks. The “pliegos de cordel” were a spread kind of illustrated ephemeral literature printed in Spain. They contained “canciones” and ”romances populares”, that is, popular songs and short novels, which were usually printed on single folded leaves and displayed for sale at cheap price in the street of the Spanish cities by hanging them onto strings, “cordeles”. These Spanish and Catalan chapbooks were printed in Barcelona by the Jolis and Pla families between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.