author
Jaume Massó i Torrents
A key figure in Catalan Modernisme, he used publishing, literature, and scholarship to help shape the cultural life of early twentieth-century Catalonia. His work ranged from poetic and narrative writing to influential studies of Catalan books, manuscripts, and medieval texts.
1 Audiobook
La fada : Drama liric en un acte
by Jaume Massó i Torrents
About the author
Born in Barcelona in 1863, Jaume Massó i Torrents was an editor, writer, and scholar. At eighteen, he founded the magazine L’Avenç, which became an important center of Catalan cultural and political renewal. From 1891, he worked with Joaquim Casas i Carbó to develop its publishing house, which produced more than 500 titles as well as several magazines and ran its own bookshop and printing press.
Massó also wrote poetry, fiction, travel writing, and drama. His best-known literary works include Llibre del cor (1888), Croquis pirinencs (1896), Natura (1898), and Desil·lusió (1904). He was closely involved in the modernization and standardization of Catalan, supporting Pompeu Fabra and helping promote Fabra’s place in the Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
A founding member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans in 1907, Massó played an important role in the early development of the Biblioteca de Catalunya and became one of the leading Catalan bibliographers of his era. He also presided over the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya and the Ateneu Barcelonès, and published his memoirs, Cinquanta anys de vida literària, in 1934. He died in Barcelona in 1943.