65
Spain
Carmen García Surrallés and Antonio Moreno Verdulla with Marisol
Dorao
Until the end of the nineteenth century there was no literature, properly speaking, for
children in Spain, but only books with the sole purpose of moralising and instructing
children and young people. Two exceptions are Padre Coloma and Fernán Caballero.
After this long pre-history the first attempts to introduce European tales into Spain were
made. Andersen was translated for the first time by Julius Nombela in 1871–1872; José
S.Viedma translated the Grimm tales in 1879, while the tales by Perrault had been
known since the previous century, due to the influence that France had on Spanish
literature.
In 1876 the publishing house Calleja was founded, lasting until the end of the civil
war (1936–1939). This publishing house contributed greatly to the diffusion of the
stories by Perrault, Schmid, Andersen, Nesbit, as well as The Arabian Nights, and
traditional Spanish tales and others by unknown authors, and the classic adventure
books (Defoe, Swift). A similar task was carried out by the publishing house Sopena.
Around this time, magazines for adults, such as Estampa and Blanco y Negro started
to have pages devoted to children’s stories, with illustrations by the famous Salvador
Bartolozzi. Blanco y Negro published Gente Menuda, a supplement for children which
later became an independent magazine.
Narratives based on reality, with children as protagonists, and no didactic intentions,
started to appear in the 1920s. The atmosphere in which these children live is mostly
upper-middle-class, such as in the case of Celia, a series created by Elena Fortún and
which was in some ways imitated after the war by Borita Casas with Antoñita la
fantástica, and by Emilia Cotarelo with Mari-Pepa.
After the civil war, the government of the dictatorship gave an impulse to children’s
books, and the recommended themes were mainly heroic and fantastic (but with a
moral), and they drew their inspiration from both Spanish folk literature and classical
literature. The work of the publishing house Araluce, which presented well adapted and
illustrated ‘masterpieces within the reach of children’ is worthy of note.
During the 1950s, new names appeared, such as José María Sánchez Silva,
Monserrat Del Amo, and Joaquín Aguirre Bellver.
More realistic and problematic social themes appeared in the 1960s, such as life in
the slums and the problems of immigrants. It is important to mention here Ángela
Ionescu, and, from adult literature, Carmen Kurtz and Ana María Matute. In the 1960s
too, there was a magazine for girls, Bazar, which had a very important role. The main