‘Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen.’ Margaret Atwood’s chilling cautionary tale is illustrated by the Balbusso sisters.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Illustrated by David Lupton
Introduced by Becky Chambers
The first illustrated edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s masterpiece, The Left Hand of Darkness. The Folio Society edition also includes an introduction by Becky Chambers and exquisite illustrations by David Lupton.
We are currently reprinting this title and it is due back in September. Sign up below to be added to our wait list and be the first to know when it is back in stock.
Product Gallery Thumbnails
Described by Margaret Atwood as ‘one of the literary greats’ and by Stephen King as ‘a literary icon’, Ursula K. Le Guin stands as a colossus in the field of speculative fiction. The Left Hand of Darkness won multiple awards, including the Hugo for best novel, making Le Guin the first woman to win it; appropriate indeed, given that her extraordinary novel of betrayal, loyalty, love and survival was to change the conversation about gender for ever. In her introduction, novelist Becky Chambers – herself nominated for both the Clarke Award and the Hugo – calls the book ‘a titan’, one that gave rise to new perspectives on what fiction could be.
‘No single work did more to upend the genre’s conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness.’
- Paris Review
Bound in printed and blocked cloth
Set in Poliphilus
288 pages
Integrated title double-page spread and 14 black & white integrated illustrations
Printed endpapers
Printed slipcase with spot UV varnish
9½˝ x 6¼˝
I was alone, with a stranger, inside the walls of a dark palace, in a strange snow-changed city, in the heart of the Ice Age of an alien world
Genly Ai is an Envoy, a diplomat sent to make first contact with inhabited planets. Winter, a world locked in a perpetual ice age, is a particularly daunting challenge: its people are androgynous, only taking on male or female sexual characteristics during ‘kemmer’, a monthly period of change and arousal. Struggling to understand the intricacies of a society where anyone could be both mother and father to multiple children, Genly is soon caught in the dangerous machinations of politicians and kings who care little for his life, or the potential life beyond their planet. He is left with little choice but to flee across a vast ice sheet, a journey dangerous enough for a native of Winter, let alone a human ill adapted to extreme cold. Yet with survival and desperation comes trust, and Genly gains a new understanding of Winter and its people.
Like the layers of snow, ice and rock that make up Winter, The Left Hand of Darkness is a novel of many layers. Le Guin’s lifelong interest in anthropology and cultural diversity is the bedrock of every page, with chapters devoted to Winter’s mythology, oral history and folk stories. Winter itself, where the habitable stretch of land is always in danger of being suffocated by ice, feels utterly real – Le Guin crafts a world of lethal beauty and completely believable complexity. David Lupton, who provided the illustrations for the Folio edition of A Wizard of Earthsea, returns with a series of sensitive and intimate black and white artworks. Le Guin herself was closely involved in directing the look and feel of this edition, with the binding, slipcase and endpapers specially designed to invoke the icy atmosphere of Winter.
You May Also Like
-
-
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.
-
The Tombs of Atuan
Illustrated by David Lupton
The Tombs of Atuan is the second book in Ursula K. Le Guin’s unmissable Earthsea series. Artist David Lupton provides the illustrations and a haunting binding design for this new Folio edition.
-
Philip K. Dick’s celebrated science-fiction thriller leaves readers guessing until the very last page. This spectacular Folio Society edition of Ubik features a new introduction by award-winning writer Kim Stanley Robinson.