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Senate House Library

Gili Catalan Collection

The Collection

Subject: Catalan literature; modern history

Approximately 2,500 items of Catalan interest, dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the late-twentieth century. Particular collection strengths are Catalan literature and literary criticism, and social, political and economic history of the region. Gili’s publications in Oxford under the Dolphin imprint are also present. Material is primarily in Catalan, with about one-quarter in Spanish and smaller numbers of books in English and other languages. In conjunction with material in the British Library, the Gili Catalan Collection gives London the strongest Catalan holdings in the United Kingdom.

The material was amassed by Joan Gili (1907-1998), an antiquarian bookseller (proprietor of the Dolphin Bookshop), publisher, and translator of Catalan origin. Following his immigration to England in 1934, Gili helped to develop Catalan studies within British Hispanism, and was a leading member of the Anglo-Catalan Society. His son Martin Gili sold the collection to the University of London in 2002.

Access

Catalogued online. To view the entire collection, do a mixed classmark search on “[Gili]”; within this, books are arranged in order of Library of Congress classification. You can also do an author search on “Gili, Joan” as former owner. The collection is held off-site and material requires 48 hours (excluding weekends) to be fetched.

Related archives

  • MS 1154 :leaflets etc. collected by Gili on political and cultural events in Catalonia 
  • MS1197 :Dolphin Book Company

Select publications

Yates, Alan, ‘Joan Lluís Gili I Serra (1907-1998)’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 76 (1999), 281-92 (biographical)