El libro español en Londres. La visión de España en Inglaterra (siglos xvi al xix) ed. by Nicolás Bas Martín, Barry Taylor (review)

El libro español en Londres is a collection of six essays by leading specialists in the history of the (Spanish) book from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It originated in a Symposium organized at the British Library in May 2016 to celebrate the fourth centenary of the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare, and is certainly a worthy contribution to the numerous publications of that notable year. It has long been known that the English (and it was primarily the English rather than the British) were devotees of Cervantes well before other nations, and the Spaniard’s early and lasting influence on the English novel is well attested. Thanks to the pioneering work of the late Nigel Glendinning, we also know that the English were among the first to appreciate and buy a wide range of Spanish books that came onto the London book market from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, although the heyday of Spanish book sales was undoubtedly the nineteenth century. This fascinating collection of essays takes us from early collectors of Spanish books, such as Dr William Bates or William Brownsword Chorley (‘the other Chorley’), to the British Library’s purchases of Spanish chapbooks in the nineteenth century, from early collectors of Cervantes’s works to the activities of the bookseller Vicente Salvá in London and, finally, the type of Spanish book available to eighteenth-century collectors. Each on its own is a valuable contribution, but together they provide a compelling picture of the London book market for Spanish books.

The first essay, by Barry Taylor, curator of the Hispanic holdings at the British Library, looks at the books owned by Dr William Bates now in Dr Williams’s Library in London. As Taylor points out, many people are aware that Samuel Pepys, the celebrated diarist, was a dedicated collector of Spanish books (he possessed some 185 different titles), especially chapbooks of ballads, but few have heard of Bates (1625–99), even though he managed to build up a substantial library of Spanish works. Taylor is rightly cautious when ascribing Spanish books in Dr Williams’s Library to Bates, but he makes a strong case for a number of them, all bought of course in the seventeenth century: ‘A riesgo de exceso de entusiasmo, me atrevo a indicar que una persona que accedía a la biblioteca del Dr Williams en 1727, gracias a la afición coleccionista del Dr Bates, podía leer tres obras de Gracián en castellano, una en una edición muy escasa; otras dos obras traducidas al inglés y otra en francés e inglés; además de las traducciones latina e inglesa de lo que era la posible fuente de una de ellas’ (p. 26). Although it has proved impossible to identify all the Spanish books Bates owned, Taylor is certain that he bought them in London and not at book fairs elsewhere, as he travelled very little abroad. Taylor ends his study with an Appendix listing the Spanish books that Bates might have owned, now in Dr Williams’s Library, books printed in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, as well as in the Low Countries. There is also a list of non-Spanish books with Bates’s signature in them. This chapter is a model of scholarship and a valuable contribution to the circulation of Spanish books in seventeenth-century England.

The next chapter, by Geoff West, formerly of the British Library, moves us forward in time to the nineteenth century and to the series of Spanish chapbooks bought by the British Library. West traces the history of the large number of Spanish chapbooks owned by the Library, tracking down previous owners...