Selected Short Stories

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘The Chocolate Box’

Michael Phillip Dunbabin is an artist from the northwest of England. He grew up immersed in pop culture, with a special fondness for cinema, literature and music. Having initially studied fine art painting at Manchester Metropolitan University, he slowly started to move towards the world of digital illustration, bringing with him some of the techniques and textures from his painting background. His style is influenced by everything from comic books to Hugues Merle.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘The Witness for the Prosecution’

David Lupton is a London-based illustrator, hand-drawing and painting his work with traditional media. He often finds expression in the melancholy and the macabre. He has created work for many commercial briefs, including editorial illustration, children's picture books, music video design and animation, and record cover artwork. Lupton has illustrated a number of books for The Folio Society, including  The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838; Folio 2015) and And Then There Were None (2017, Folio 2025). He worked closely with Ursula K. Le Guin to illustrate the Folio book A Wizard of Earthsea (1968; Folio 2015) and continued to realise the author's vision after Le Guin passed away, illustrating  The Left Hand of Darkness (1969; Folio 2018), The Dispossessed (1974; Folio 2019), The Tombs of Atuan (1970; Folio 2022), The Farthest Shore (1972; Folio 2022), Tehanu (1990; Folio 2023), Tales from Earthsea (2001; Folio 2023) and The Other Wind (2001; Folio 2024).

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘The Blood-Stained Pavement’

Olivia Daw was raised in East Anglia by a large family of creatives. Her passion for drawing began at a friend’s kitchen table and she has since gone on to receive a BA in illustration from the Cambridge School of Art. Combining her experience in both game development and classical art, Olivia combines historical and contemporary influences and is just as likely to be found working in Photoshop as sketching with charcoal. The Pale Horse (1961; Folio 2023) was her first commission for The Folio Society.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’

Laura Hope is a figurative artist based in Oxfordshire. She obtained a first-class honours degree in illustration at Cardiff School of Art and Design before going on to work as a memorial artist, hand etching portraits onto gravestones. Her illustrations have been commissioned by clients including Stylist magazine, Sipsmith, Kiehl’s and Clive Christian. As a portrait artist she has been shortlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize and won the de Laszlo Foundation Award at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘The Coming of Mr Quin’

Sally Dunne graduated from the Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University, with an MA in Children's Book Illustration and began her professional career by winning the V&A Illustration Awards' Student of the Year prize in 2020. Her work for The Folio Society includes Agatha Christie's Crooked House (1949; Folio 2021), Georgette Heyer's Venetia (1958; Folio 2021), Arabella (1949; Folio 2022) and Frederica (1967; Folio 2023), as well as Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1878; Folio 2026). Sally works predominantly with pastel and has exhibited with The Pastel Society and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘In a Glass Darkly’

Hokyoung Kim grew up in South Korea and studied painting at Hongik University in Seoul, followed by training in illustration at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. She is now based in Queens, New York City, and specialises in illustrations for print media. Her work has been commissioned by The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal, as well as book publishers such as HarperCollins and corporate clients including Apple. She previously worked in animation and film production and has retained a strong interest in storytelling and narrative as part of her practice.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

‘Triangle at Rhodes’

Fergus Hare is an artist based in Brighton, East Sussex. He studied Illustration at Norwich School of Art and Design and continues to exhibit his paintings and drawings internationally. His drawings of the Moon have been featured in Astronomy magazine, and discussed in the book Moon: Art, Science and Culture. His work has been discussed in lectures focusing on British Romanticism in contemporary art. A study of Hare’s career by Jenny Uglow was published in 2022.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

Cover artwork

Owen Gent is an award-winning illustrator and artist living and working in Bristol in the South West of England. Owen's work can be found in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker and The Washington Post, on the cover of books by Bill Bryson, Thomas Hardy and Ian McEwan, on posters for major film releases and in his own illustrated and authored children's books. Both traditional painting and digital techniques combine in Owen's work to create an organic yet contemporary approach to storytelling, which is an integral part to everything that he does. Owen is the winner of a World Illustration Award and has received accolades from 3x3, D&AD, and the V&A amongst others. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926; Folio 2019, 2026) was Owen's first book for The Folio Society which has been a dream client of his since graduating from Falmouth University in Cornwall in 2013.