The September Subscription Books

Announcing the Library and History books for September 2024

Castalia Library is pleased to announce that the September-October subscription book will be JANE EYRE by Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre will be the 30th book in the Castalia Library series and print runs of 750 for the Library edition and 80 for the Libraria edition are anticipated.

Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on 16 October 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York.

Primarily of the bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of its title character, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr. Rochester, the Byronic master of fictitious Thornfield Hall. In its internalisation of the action—the focus is on the gradual unfolding of Jane's moral and spiritual sensibility, and all the events are coloured by a heightened intensity that was previously the domain of poetry—Jane Eyre revolutionised the art of fiction. Charlotte Brontë has been called the 'first historian of the private consciousness' and the literary ancestor of writers like Joyce and Proust.

The novel Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character. The novel is set somewhere in the north of England, during the reign of George III (1760–1820), and goes through five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she acquires friends and role models but suffers privations and oppression; her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; her time with the Rivers family, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St. John Rivers, proposes to her; and her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester. During these sections the novel provides perspectives on a number of important social issues and ideas.

Jane Eyre is divided into 38 chapters, and most editions are at least 400 pages long. The original publication was in three volumes, comprising chapters 1 to 15, 16 to 26, and 27 to 38; this was a common publishing format during the 19th century. Brontë dedicated the novel's second edition to William Makepeace Thackeray.

As for Castalia History, the current subscription book is THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE Vol. II, which is the July-August-September book and the 6th book in the History series. We’re very pleased to announce that the two-volume set will be the first Castalia Library books to feature the elite full grain Spanish cowhide that we have been testing; despite being three times more expensive than the top-grain Italian cowhide that we have used hitherto, we will not be raising the prices of the two books.

Byzantium lasted a thousand years, ruled to the end by self-styled 'emperors of the Romans'. It underwent kaleidoscopic territorial and structural changes, yet recovered repeatedly from disaster: even after the near-impregnable Constantinople fell in 1204, variant forms of the empire reconstituted themselves. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492 tells the story, tracing political and military events, religious controversies and economic change. It offers clear, authoritative chapters on the main events and periods, with more detailed chapters on outlying regions and neighbouring societies and powers of Byzantium. With aids such as maps, a glossary, an alternative place-name table and references to English translations of sources, it will be valuable as an introduction.

A print run of 675 is anticipated for both volumes. We are currently planning to bind both History books in October at the new Castalia bindery in the UK… about which more another time.

The title pages for the two volumes of THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE.