Over the last six weeks, Castalia House has translated approximately 8.5 million words from over 100 foreign language works into English. Most of these works have never before been translated into English, including the complete ouvres of major authors like Benito Perez Galdos, Eiji Yoshikawa, Naoki Sanjugo, and Nomoro Kido. The list of translations you’ve seen here is only a list of those we’ve published on Amazon; there are entire series that we haven’t made public yet.
In October, Castalia House will launch Castalia Unlimited, which is designed to be an improvement on Kindle Unlimited. It is not a store. We do not plan to offer single book sales from authors there and we are not attempting to compete with Amazon. What we will offer is a steady and relentless supply of high-quality literature from the public domain of every major literary language on Earth, including English, although the widespread availability from free sites like Project Gutenberg is why we will not focus on English originals.
All Castalia House ebooks are DRM-free. Every download from Castalia Unlimited becomes your property, unlike that other nominally unlimited site where your access to that five-million-book catalog of My Dead Billionaire Boyfriend, Gay Vampire Raptors in Space, and My D&D Elf Harem is capped at 20 ebooks and ends the moment you stop paying $12 per month in tribute for your ability to read those books.
We anticipate having 150 books available on launch, with at least 10 new books being added every week. Our production schedule anticipates having 1,200 books available by the end of 2027. There will be three levels of subscription, two of which will be available monthly, the third will only be available as an annual subscription. The minimum level is the same as it is for this paid substack subscription, $9.99 per month or $99 per year for a weekly ebook; those taking out annual subscriptions will also be able to download three additional books of their choice per month. And, of course, all paid subscriptions to this substack will be grandfathered into the Castalia Unlimited system.
So here is the question for our thousands of free subscribers that we would appreciate you answering, no matter what your answer might happen to be:
If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments. Also, the weekly subscription book is going out today, in case you’re wondering why it hasn’t arrived yet.
Castalia Library makes the world’s most beautiful leather books at its own bindery in Switzerland. Castalia House is the world’s premier translator of never-before translated works from Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, and German into English. To support Castalia House’s historic translation efforts and receive a new translated ebook every week, support the Alexandria project, and get future access to Castalia Unlimited, become a paid subscriber to this substack. And to receive a premium deluxe leatherbound history book every four months, subscribe to Castalia History.
At this point, I have no doubt you will over deliver in due time given your quality standards. The value at 67 cents per ebook seem incredibly reasonable. The real question is can I read 150 books!
By your omission of the classic Hugo nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion from the list of excluded works, I look forward to being able to download a DRM-free epub. I personally voted for that work. You are kind.
This is an incredible development. May you succeed and prosper.