The Day of Books and Roses: The History of World Book Day
- Lantana Publishing
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Princess and knight, red roses in dragon blood, books and Cervantes and Barcelona—the history of World Book Day is a riveting story of the encounter between a medieval legend and modern marketing in the heart of Catalonia.
The Day of Books and Roses, as it is known in Catalonia, falls on the traditional Saint George’s Day celebrating the region’s patron saint. The festival is widely considered to be the Catalan version of Valentine’s Day, as Sant Jordi is said to be the patron saint of lovers in Catalonia. On this day, people exchange roses and books with their beloved, be it partners, family, or friends. The roses exchanged are traditionally red, wrapped in ribbons the colours of the Catalan flag, and accompanied by an ear of wheat. From its conception in the 1920s to today, the festival has and continues to generate great commercial activity for the publishing industry as well as fan the flames for love and literature.
While in the UK we celebrate World Book Day on the first Thursday of March, its original date is in April and tells another story. This year we want to borrow the spirit and romance of the Day of Books and Roses to inject some new excitement and joy into our celebration of reading.
Roses Fairs, Book Stalls, and a Marketing Genius
“Today, Barcelona celebrated Book Day with its customary dignity… All our bookstores, displaying their characteristic good taste, offered the public — in artistic displays — the latest releases, new editions of the classics, and the interesting and varied books that the public, supporting the cultural spirit that inspires Book Day, hastened to purchase.”
— la humanitat, April 23 1932
In 1925, Vicente Clavel, director of the Cervantes publishing house in Barcelona, proposed the idea of a Book Day to the Catalan Chamber of Books to promote Catalan books and boost sales. The date was set to be October 7th, the birthday of the author of Don Quixote and the publisher’s namesake.
On the day, publishers took to the street and set up stands to display and sell their books, often offering 10% discounts to further promote sales. The celebration was an immediate commercial success and established as an annual festival.
The day after the second Book Day on October 8, 1927, local newspapers raved about the Book Day and called it “a festival of civility and intelligence that has quickly taken root in the soul of the city.”
Four years later in 1931, at booksellers’ request, the event was moved to April 23rd to coincide with not only the deaths of Cervantes and William Shakespeare, but also the established celebration of Saint George (Sant Jordi), the patron saint of Catalonia. The legend of Sant Jordi tells of a princess who was about to be sacrificed to a bloodthirsty dragon when her knight-in-shining-armour, Sant Jordi, came to the rescue and slayed the beast. Where the dragon’s blood soaked the earth, a patch of red roses blossomed. The knight took one and offered it to the princess.
Barcelona’s tradition of hosting a Rose Fair in celebration of Sant Jordi’s Day has been recorded as early as the 15th century and well-established by the time the publisher Clavel came up with his marketing campaign.
On the day, crowds gather at the palace of the Barcelona Provincial Council, making their way through a sea of roses. On La Rambla, the tree-lined pedestrian street in central Barcelona, booksellers set up stands out in the open and stacked their books up for display, attracting men, women, and children to browse and flip through the copies. The 1936 photograph featured at the beginning of this article shows the Spanish geographer Pau Vila and his granddaughter standing by stacks of brochures on a stand. The photograph, though silent, betray the dynamism and vibrancy of the scene—one can almost hear the clamour of the streets, the discussions, and the sound of page-flipping.
“A Rose for Love and a Book Forever”
Though the UK arguably differs considerably from Catalonia in climate and culture—Barcelona reports a total of 2591 hours of sunshine per year while the UK boasts a shocking 1648.5 hours in 2025 (‘the sunniest year on record’, BBC reports)—there is something to be learnt here from the Day of Book and Roses about the joy of reading and the power of community. This is especially pertinent for 2026, the National Year of Reading, when the entire nation is coming together to combat the decline in reading enjoyment in the UK and to (re)connect with the joy books bring.
So this World Book Day, we at Lantana bring to you this brief history of the festival in the hopes that it will inspire some joyous celebrations of love and reading in your own lives. Perhaps you could pick up some flowers and a book to your loved ones and start a new tradition of your own!
In the spirit of the bustling street stands of the Day of Books and Roses, we are also thrilled to announce that we will be attending the London Book Fair next week, March 10th-12th. Come meet us at the Inpress stand 6G28!
Image citations in order of appearance:
Blasi i Vallespinosa, Francesc, 1872-1951, “Pau Vila, la seva néta i un altre home en una parada de Sant Jordi a Barcelona,” Archivo Digital de la Diada de Sant Jordi y del Día del Libro, accessed March 5, 2026, https://projectsantjordi.net/da/items/show/48.
Fábregas Catarineu, Tomàs, “Dia del Llibre,” Archivo Digital de la Diada de Sant Jordi y del Día del Libro, accessed March 4, 2026, https://projectsantjordi.net/da/items/show/57.
Unknown, “Tapís de Sant Jordi al Centre Excursionista de Catalunya,” Archivo Digital de la Diada de Sant Jordi y del Día del Libro, accessed March 5, 2026, https://projectsantjordi.net/da/items/show/50.
By Francis Lenn - Diada de Sant Jordi, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90079011