Heritage

of the Publishers and the Published of Catalonia

Barcelona, 1910-1986

Bruguera


(Updated 08/10/2024)

In 1910, Joan Bruguera Teixidó founded the Bruguera publishing house, which was initially called El Gato Negro. From the very start, it focused on popular literature which it issued regularly at affordable prices. By 1938, it had published thousands of titles, including literary classics from all over the world, books of jokes, comics and children’s stories and especially serial novels. It published all kinds of genres: adventure books, police stories, humorous books, war stories, historical novels, mysteries, but also transfers, picture cards and cut-outs. In 1921, the magazine Pulgarcito was launched, the most popular periodical of the many titles that the publishing house issued until 1939. Sigronet was launched in Catalan in 1924 under editor-in-chief, Emili Graells. 

In 1940, Pantaleón and Francisco Bruguera, the sons of the founder, who had died in 1933, decided to change the name of the publishing house to use the family’s surname. The restrictions on paper, rigid censorship and favourable treatment for children’s magazines that supported the Franco regime were complicating factors at the onset of this new era.

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