Out Of This World Folio Editions

Imagine it. You go into work one day and are handed something immensely precious: a story. And not just any story, either. A story loved by millions. One that has spawned countless fan websites. Inspired fan fiction. Featured in Twitter spats that threaten to break friendships, if not the internet. And now you are in charge of it.

The new Folio edition, limited to just 500 copies and now sold out, takes Dunsany’s vision to a new level. Quarter-bound in leather, it features a stunning binding design and a slipcase containing a special print of Lirazel – the King of Elfland’s eponymous daughter – with endpapers depicting the Hunt of the Unicorn. ‘Our chosen illustrator, Julie Dillon, is at the top of her game,’ says Rose. ‘Her illustrations are both beautiful and melancholic, capturing the atmosphere and the feel of high fantasy absolutely perfectly.’ Best-selling author Erin Morgenstern has contributed an introduction which, says Perkins, has all the magic and mystery of Lord Dunsany’s own story. ‘Her introduction is so beautiful: it shines a light down the path to the story. She considers what it is like to read and reread a book that you love and find new ways into – and what that means for both the book and the reader.’ Many of the stories in Interpreter of Maladies are about immigrants living in the United States. Living in the US myself, I am culturally a little different from Indians who were born here. That's something reflected in the stories that I connected with. I had this idea of illustrating a key scene from each story with an additional overlaid image representing the malady, to add another layer of meaning.

Like fantasy, sci-fi has many branches – from cyberpunk to hopepunk, as represented in Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which is now out of stock. Chambers self-published the book following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014: it was picked up by a major publisher in 2015 and is now published as a limited edition by Folio. ‘The Long Way represents our ambitions in science fiction and fantasy to bring readers the very best of literature. That doesn’t have to be an established novel: it can be a fresh, new, beloved one,’ says Rose.

Chambers has been involved throughout the process, and each of the limited edition’s 750 copies is signed by her and by artist Zoë van Dijk, whose artwork features throughout. ‘Becky has been kind enough to comment on every single one of the illustrations,’ says Rose. ‘She said that she has seen a lot of representations of her work, but she has never before seen images that match so closely what was in her own head. That’s a huge compliment, and we’re very lucky to have had Zoë on board. She’s created mind-blowing visuals for the box: it opens as a diagonal clamshell; the printed page edges have the ship – the Wayfarer – travelling through space; and the stunning endpapers show a series of portholes from the ship looking out into space.’

From the lands of faerie to a Victorian England suffused with magic, and from grimy city dystopias to a peaceful, far-of corner of the galaxy, each of these very different Folio editions offers something new and jaw-droppingly beautiful to even the most devoted of fans. As Rose remarks: ‘It’s a symbiotic partnership between the editorial and production teams, the art directors, the artists and the authors (or the estate of the author) to fulfil the promise of each book, a partnership that brings that promise to the readers in as beautiful and as timeless a way as we can possibly manage.’