The Folio Society’s New Collection Is Live

The Folio Society is very well known for its fine, illustrated editions. Their newest collection dropped earlier this season, and it’s got some great classics, gorgeous covers, and brilliant illustrations. We’ve compiled a list of our favorites below. Feast your eyes and treat yourself to a little gift.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

From the Folio editor, Sophia Schoepfer: This is the Queen of Crime’s greatest murder mystery and one of the best-selling books of all time for good reason. It is a tense and masterfully plotted mystery with an ingenious denouement that Agatha Christie herself described as ‘a better piece of craftsmanship than anything else I have written’. ​

Our edition features 15 spinetingling illustrations by artist David Lupton, whose expressionist drawings perfectly evoke the threatening atmosphere and mutual suspicion of And Then There Were None.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern​

From the Folio editor, Sophia Schoepfer: ‘The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.’ So begins Erin Morgenstern’s tale of rival magicians, forbidden love and an enchanted moonlit circus.

More than ten years since it was first published, The Night Circus continues to enthrall readers young and old. Our edition is a tribute to this beguiling modern fairytale. It is outfitted in red, black and gold livery, with a Cirque des Rêves ticket on the scarlet slipcase, candle-lit endpapers and seven intricate illustrations by Cristina Bencina.

The Universe by Andrew Cohen

Though not fiction, Cohen’s book delves into the science behind the stars. Definitely not one to miss for readers who enjoy a good hard sci-fi story.

From the Folio editor, Mandy Kirkby: Every night, a cosmic drama of epic proportions plays out above our heads, and no one can convey how thrilling and incredible this is better than Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen. In this companion to The Planets, they take us beyond our solar system to a vast and ever-changing world, from the first stars, the engines of creation, to the dramatic story of the Milky Way and the billions of alien worlds that exist within our own galaxy.

We’ve drawn on NASA photography from the latest and most important telescopes and exploration projects. Selected by Professor David Rothery, they depict starscapes of immense beauty and Professor Rothery’s exclusive introduction explains how these mind-bending images of objects and landscapes millions of miles away are taken. A special two-colour design and spectacular binding, endpapers and foldout make this a very special edition.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

From the Folio editor, Sophia Schoepfer: Death is the narrator of this tale, which follows Liesel Meminger, a young girl plucked from her home and dispatched to a foster family. When Liesel finds a book on the cold graveyard ground, her world changes forever. Marcus Zusak weaves a narrative that is a reckoning of the not-so-distant past, and a love letter to humanity and to literature.

This edition of the modern classic contains seven of Alexis Deacon’s atmospheric illustrations, which the author described as being filled with ‘little gifts and treasures’.

The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany

From the Folio editor, James Rose: Journey beyond ‘the fields we know’ to the ageless realm of Elfland, where a young prince must win the heart of Lirazel, the King of Elfland’s daughter – but the laws of time and nature work strangely between these two worlds, offering a warning to those who seek magic too readily. This edition celebrates a founding novel of the fantasy genre – one whose prose and poetry, whose unicorns and witches and trolls, would inspire authors from J. R. R. Tolkine to Ursula K. Le Guin.

Bound in printed and blocked cloth, this superb edition features eight original colour illustrations, along with endpapers depicting a unicorn hunt, by multiple Hugo and Locus award-winning fantasy artist Julie Dillon. An exclusive introduction by Erin Morgenstern completes this grand and dreamlike fairy tale for adults.

DC: Superman selected and introduced by Jenette Kahn

From the Folio editor, James Rose: The last of his race and of a destroyed planet, Superman is, ironically, one of the most human of all superheroes. An ordinary man, with extraordinary powers.

Tracing the rise of Superman, from his inception in the early 1930s, through first publication and culminating in the epic Peace on Earth, this edition is an unparallelled collection of the Man of Steel’s most important 20th century comics. Featuring breathtaking artwork and moving storylines, Superman, Lois Lane and his great enemies are revealed in original scans taken directly from the DC archive.​

Selected and introduced by former DC president and publisher Jenette Kahn, this new edition also features a foreword by acclaimed comic book writer Marjorie Liu who provides a personal view of just what the Last Son of Krypton means to her.​

Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin

From the Folio editor, Sophia Schoepfer: What’s that in the distance? Is it the brush of dragon’s wings against the clouds? Queen Daenerys’s family tree is a rich one, filled with over 300 years-worth of rulers of the seven kingdoms. In Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin dissects the Targaryen family’s history through the eyes of Archmaester Gyldayn. ​

This is the ultimate book for fans of the original series; it provides rich context of the family responsible for the world of Westeros as we know it. Plus, there are dragons, and lots of them!

Artist Audrey Benjaminsen has captured the Targaryen family like no one else. Her illustrations jump from the page – the absentness in Area’s eyes upon returning with Balerion, the madness in Rhaenyra as she sits on the Iron Throne. This is the definitive edition of a definitive story, one that would surely sit in the library of the Citadel for centuries to come.  ​

Adriana Acevedo

Adriana Acevedo is an editor, writer, and sleep paralysis demon. She's been published in magazines like samfiftyfour and Impostor. She's bilingual and living in the monstrous Mexico City. Whenever she's not reading horror stories or watching horror movies, she's baking sourdough bread. Read more of her writing here.