Editorial Saturnino Calleja · Madrid · c. 1900s
Spain’s lost fairy tales, restored — and in English for the first time.
A handful of brittle Calleja booklets, mailed from Peru to a daughter in America and rediscovered decades later, is becoming a library again: preserved, repaired plate by plate, and translated for readers who never had a way in.
Drag the cover to see the restoration →
Front cover, El Palacio Subterráneo, Tomo 43 — the pencilled shelf mark and a century of wear on one side, the finished English edition on the other.
How the books were found
A plastic bag, a grandfather in Peru, and a private rescue.
This series began when my mother, cleaning out her closet, found a group of fragile Calleja booklets. She brought them to me in a plastic bag and asked whether there was any way to restore them so that she could read them again.
The little books were a gift she had treasured for decades. After she first immigrated to America, her father in Peru took the time to mail them to her. He marked them by hand and kept them in the best condition he could before sending them across an ocean — small pieces of home, and of him.
Before restoring anything, we searched for other copies. The booklets proved to be scarce — few surviving copies anywhere, and no English translation we could find. What began as a private repair for my mother became this larger restoration: preserving the Spanish originals, repairing the artwork, and translating the stories so that new readers could finally meet them.
“Tienes más cuento que Calleja.” — a saying still heard in Spain: “You have more stories than Calleja” — the publisher whose little books taught generations to read.
The method
Preserved, restored, translated.
The originals stay untouched
Every booklet is scanned at archival resolution before any work begins. The Spanish originals — wear, shelf marks, and all — are kept and documented inside each edition.
Covers revived, plates kept honest
The chromolithograph covers are cleaned and repaired from the surviving scans. The interior engravings are restored conservatively, preserving their original composition, linework, and period texture.
English editions, faithfully made
Each tale is newly translated from the Spanish text, verified line against line, with notes on where each story came from — Grimm, the Thousand and One Nights, or Calleja’s own workshop.
The plates
Engravings from The Underground Palace.
Six plates accompany the first tale. They are cleaned and repaired from the surviving scans, preserving the original engraver’s composition and linework a century on.
From the first tale
The Underground Palace
An elderly king, surrounded by his children, one day told them his story. He said: “My father had a brother who, like him, ruled over a neighboring state. This brother had two children: a prince and a princess… The last time I saw my cousin, he received me with great demonstrations of affection.
‘Can you guess what I have been occupied with since your last departure?’ he asked. ‘I have had a building constructed that is already finished and ready to be inhabited. It will not displease you to see it — but first you must swear to me that you will keep silent about whatever you witness.’”
The launch list
Get the first tale, free.
Join the list and we’ll send you the illustrated Underground Palace bonus edition, a pack of the restored artwork, and a note as each new tale in the series is finished.