Travel & Exploration

Syria: The Desert and The Sown is a masterpiece of travel writing by Gertrude Bell, a pioneering Victorian explorer of Arabia, now available in a stunning Folio edition featuring her original photography.

Full of sweat, tears and side-splitting humour, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods is a page-turning travelogue and this Folio Society edition is the ultimate companion for fans of the author’s inimitable wit.

The Folio Society’s three-volume set of the journals of Captain Cook from 1768–1779 is accompanied by a chart of the voyages bound in cloth.

Commemorating the centenary of Ernest Shackleton’s death, The Folio Society brings together The Heart of the Antarctic and South – thrilling accounts of his greatest polar expeditions in his own words.

Howard Carter’s thrilling account of discovering Tutankhamun’s Tomb, in a superb two-volume Folio edition including a book of colour photographs by Sandro Vannini and the original text and exploration photographs.

Compiled, written and edited by Peter Gillman for The Folio Society, Everest: From Reconnaissance to Summit is an exclusive record of five key expeditions, introduced by Wade Davis and Jan Morris with superlative photography from the Royal Geographical Society archives.

Andrew Chaikin selects stunning new photography for The Folio Society edition of A Man on the Moon – his commanding history of the Apollo missions, with an introduction by Tom Hanks. 

With a fully revised introduction by Robert Macfarlane and paintings by landscape artist Rose Strang, this Folio edition of Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain celebrates her timeless ode to nature.  

A story of tremendous courage and endurance, related first-hand by Frank Worsley, this stunning Folio Society edition of Shackleton's Boat Journey includes photographs by Frank Hurley, maps and introduction by explorer Ranulph Fiennes. 

Signed by introducer Robert Macfarlane and artist Rose Strang, this beautiful new Folio edition of Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain celebrates her timeless ode to nature.

Blending investigative journalism with the personal approach of a writer both fascinated and appalled by her subject, this is an award-winning portrait of life under ‘one of the most savage surveillance regimes ever known’. With previously unpublished photographs by the author.

A vivid portrait of a post-Mao China, from one of the great travel writers.

A landmark edition of Bird’s monumental journey down the Yangtze river in 19th-century China, featuring over 100 photographs, each carefully restored by Folio.

Jan Morris’s exuberant and witty love letter to the Manhattan of 1945 effortlessly evokes a time when it was ‘the most hopeful city on earth’.

A lavishly illustrated 20th anniversary edition of Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of how and why Eurasians developed the weapons, diseases and technologies that enabled them to dominate the rest of the world.

Ian Mortimer, best-selling author of the Time Traveller’s series, launches readers into the omnipresent odours and architectural wonders of Elizabethan England in our stunning new Folio Society edition.

London and New York, 40 rare photogravures by a master of the art, in facsimile for the first time.

The Folio Book of Food and Drink is an anthology of culinary delights, stimulating appetites with literary extracts including Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth David and Nigel Slater. This collection – exclusive to Folio – features a mouthwatering introduction by food writer Jojo Tulloh, and a selection of cartoons and 19th-century illustrations.

Published in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society, the British Library and the Scott Polar Research Institute, this Folio edition is the complete facsimile of all 12 original issues of the South Polar Times – Captain Scott’s expedition magazine.