Illustrated by Joe Morse
Introduced by Russell Banks
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, Toni Morrison’s seminal novel Beloved remains an enduring masterpiece. The Folio edition is introduced by Russell Banks and features illustrations by Joe Morse.
‘Beloved is one of those rare novels I'd describe as necessary.’
- Irish Times
As extraordinary as the character who inspires its title, Beloved is seminal both in its stylistic achievements and its searing depiction of the lives of African Americans under slavery. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988, and in 2006 was ranked the nation’s best work of fiction of the past 25 years by the New York Times. At its daring, startling heart lies the image of infanticide; an act of paradoxical violence by which an escaped slave, Sethe, saves her child from a life like her own. Unnamed, the baby is buried in a grave marked ‘Beloved’, but her time among the living has not drawn to an end. With an introduction by award-winning writer Russell Banks, and featuring Joe Morse’s striking illustrations, this is a beautiful collector’s edition of an essential novel.
Quarterbound in blocked cloth with metallic paper sides
Set in New Caledonia with Priori Serif display
304 pages
Frontispiece and 8 colour illustrations
Blocked slipcase
9˝ x 6¼˝
Underlying Beloved’s many hauntings – literal and metaphorical – are the stark realities of slavery, every bit as brutal as the experience of stoical Sethe and her kin. Morrison’s many-layered narrative gradually tells their stories, revealing the bonds that tie them to each other, in life and in death, and how they strive to cope with memories of appalling abuse, loss and indignity. She evokes beautifully the complex interplay between past and present – the power of the former to govern the latter – and the profound, particular difficulties of navigating the world as a former slave, of developing a sense of identity: ‘Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.’ The novel’s magical and mythical elements, which the characters largely perceive without surprise, serve to heighten its realism.
Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road is presented as a Folio collector’s edition, with artist Gérard DuBois’s beautiful and desolate illustrations and Michael Chabon’s New York Review of Books essay. Winner of the Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year Prize at the V&A Illustration Awards 2022.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the powerful memoir of an American slave, published with photographic portraits and a new introduction exclusive to the Folio edition.
Maya Angelou’s empowering and moving memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is newly introduced and illustrated in this beautifully crafted Folio edition.
The past becomes a deadly leash in Octavia E. Butler’s remarkable science-fiction thriller Kindred. This special Folio Society edition features work by award-winning artist James E. Ransome.
