The professor Nicolás Bas analyses in his book the image of Spain in Europe in the 18th century

The Dutch publisher Brill was funded in 1683 and it is specialised in Humanities and Social Sciences. It has just published Nicolás Bas Martín’s book: Spanish books in the Europe of the Enlightenment (Paris and London). A View from Abroad.

This book is the result of five years of work in Paris and London. He was invited by the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) and the Queen Mary University, respectively. He used the stocks of the British Library, the French National Library and some archives of auction houses, such as Sotheby’s or Christie’s, among others. It is an unprecedented work of compared bibliography in which books became the main subjects of study. The research also focuses on 18th century booksellers and collectors. It is a manner of knowing the vision of Spain in the period, in which clichés and stereotypes were sowed within the black legend. It is very useful to understand the present.

The main objective of the book is to rebuild the image of Spain. This is how they saw us, or better said, how they read us. The research has been carried out by studying Spanish books that were bought and sold in Paris and London. We find them in booksellers’ catalogues, in auction houses (Christie’s and Sotheby’s, among others) and in the stocks of the main private libraries, among other sources.

The book demonstrates that Spanish books during the 18th century were read to a very limited extent among English and French. In certain cases, when it was read it helped to transmit an image of a country clung to the past, the Spanish Golden Age, rather than a nation of the Enlightenment.

It is paradoxical that this image of Spain was spread during the 18th century when the country was ruled by an enlightened monarch and reformist ministers. However, books prove that Spain in the century of the Enlightenment was seen by Europeans as a country of backwardness, ignorance, superstition and rejection of progress.

This explains why Paris and London agreed on the vision of the Spanish book, and therefore, Spain: It was reduced to the Spanish Golden Age. Then, what happened with Spanish Enlightenment? The truth is that French and British libraries, press, private and public libraries, sells and auctions silenced all Spanish pieces produced in the 18th century.

The so-called classics of the Spanish literature represented modernity for English and French readers. A canon with little differences was shared by French and British bibliophiles, booksellers and readers. It is reduced to short list of no more than ten names, led by Cervantes, whose books were more translated than read in his original language. Other authors were Mariana, Antonio de Solís, Herrera, Lope de Vega, Quevedo; as well as representative books as el Guzmán, el Lazarillo, or la Biblia Políglota Complutense, .

This was the vision that arrived to British and French booksellers through its main two instruments of reference. On the one hand, the oral culture that was spoken in the streets and transmitted what was read and discussed, as well as the news arriving to the city thanks to travellers, diplomats and merchants. On the other hand, the printed culture that was edited and published.