The history of the classification of chemical elements is reviewed from the point of view of a bibliophile. The influence that relevant books had on the development of the periodic table and, conversely, how it was incorporated into textbooks, treatises and literary works, with an emphasis on the Spanish bibliography are analyzed in this paper. The reader will also find unexpected connections of the periodic table with the Bible or the architect Buckminster Fuller. Keywords Periodicity Á Mendeleev Á Chemical elements Á Chemistry textbooks Á Science and literature Many natural phenomena exhibit a dependence of a periodic character. Thus the phenomena of day and night and the seasons of the year, and vibrations of all kinds, exhibit variations of a periodic character in dependence on time and space Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, 1889Boyle, Lavoisier, Dalton and Mendeleev, all wrote books that represent important steps in the development of the concept of chemical elements and of the methods of classification of elements. The present work reviews these and other significant books, in the context of the discoveries and theories that led to today's periodic system. Furthermore, an overview of the presence of the chemical elements and the periodic system in literary works will be presented. Most of the books commented here have been collected in a temporary exhibition of the library of Physics and Chemistry of the University of Barcelona, that can be visited online