‘Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen.’ Margaret Atwood’s chilling cautionary tale is illustrated by the Balbusso sisters.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Illustrated by Elliot Lang
Introduced by Michael Dirda
A major work of post-apocalyptic science fiction, Walter M. Miller Jr’s best-selling A Canticle for Leibowitz receives its first fully illustrated edition courtesy of Folio, introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda and with evocative, medieval artwork by Elliot Lang. Limited to 500 copies.
£400.00
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‘A thought-provoking, often playful, and tantalizingly enigmatic masterpiece.’
- Michael Dirda, from his introduction
Explore a world of feudal futurism in the beloved classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, a post-nuclear masterwork featuring 12 full-page pieces of original artwork by premier fantasy artist Elliot Lang. Folio presents Walter M. Miller Jr’s Hugo-award winning novel as never before seen. This vital chapter in the canon of 20th century science fiction takes place in a scorched earth in which an order of monks is dedicated to recovering the remnants of scientific knowledge lost to nuclear war. Evocative, complex and gently funny, A Canticle for Leibowitz most recently provided direct inspiration for the Fallout games and TV show, and has been one of Folio’s most consistently requested titles. Having recommended the book himself, Pulitzer Prize-winning literary essayist Michael Dirda provides an illuminating introduction, while Elliot Lang’s brilliant designs and illustrations create a truly immersive reading experience. Along with medieval-style historiated chapter initials, scrollworked part-titles, ingenious endpaper design, an illustrated cover and slipcase, Lang also contributes an exclusive afterword that tells the uncanny story of his own personal connection to this timeless work of spiritual wonder and post-apocalyptic terror.
Limited to 500 copies
Quarter-bound in blocked leather, with cloth sides printed and blocked with a design by Elliot Lang. Set in Kristal with Rotunda Veneta as display
392 pages printing in black and gold ink throughout on Abbey Pure paper
Thirty drop-cap illustrations and an illustrated title page and three part-titles
Frontispiece and 11 full-page colour illustrations, two of which are double-page spreads, printed on Gardapat 13 Kiara paper
Printed endpapers
Ribbon Marker
Gilded book edges
Metallic gold cloth slipcase printed in black with an original design by Elliot Lang
Limitation label printed in black and gold ink on Fedrigoni Marina Conchiglia paper signed by Michael Dirda and Elliot Lang
9˝ x 61⁄4˝
‘As deeply true as any book I’ve read… Prodigiously imaginative and original, richly comic, terrifyingly grim, profound both intellectually and morally, and, above all, is simply a memorable story as to stay with a reader for years’
- Edmund Fuller Magazine of Books, Chicago Tribune
Since its first serial publication in a popular sci-fi magazine of the 1950s, A Canticle for Leibowitz has sold over two million copies worldwide and the novel version has never fallen out of print. It was one of the first works of modern science fiction that connected with readers outside the genre fandom and was inspired by Miller’s service during the Second World War – the author participated in bombing the centuries-old Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, a sanctuary that had once housed generations of antique texts. As Michael Dirda’s introduction explains, the three stories in Miller’s epic triptych envision a broken world in which the light of progress brings only darkness, though never quite extinguishes hope. Folio presents this poignant wasteland chronicle signed by both Dirda and illustrator Elliot Lang, in a volume worthy of veneration by the monks of Leibowitz themselves. Lang provides revelatory cover designs for both the gold-cloth slipcase and blocked quarter-leatherbound book, complete with creamy gold-edged Abbey Pure pages. With endpapers depicting sacred pre-war blueprints and illustrations as vivid as stained glass, the book feels like an artefact straight out of Miller’s antique-future world, making this a truly visionary edition of an apocalyptic classic.
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