#Folio society books series#

The coloured series of 12 fairy tale books was and is their best known collection and it's this that The Folio Society have reproduced. Andrew Lang was a writer who, with his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne, created a collection of fairy stories from around the world. Andrew Lang's Fairy Books: collected by and for adults as well as for children.Here are just a few of what we consider to be the highlights: From travel to fairy tales to thrillers, science fiction, fiction, classics, poetry and plays. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a genre that hasn't been covered by them. The range of books published by The Folio Society varies enormously.

(It's definitely worth taking a look at the video on the production here). Not only that, but The Folio Society has collaborated with some of the pre-eminent book binders of the day, for example with Ludlow Bookbinders on Shackleton Aurora Australis. The 21st century, however, has seen a return to their core values, not just in terms of production but with regard to commissioning leading illustrators of the day for example, Paula Rego, Quentin Blake, Dave Mckean to name a tiny handful. In our view The Folio Society's adherence to those early founding principles has wavered a little at times in the 20th century. Consequently they needed to strike a balance between mass production whilst using as excellent quality paper and bindings as they could afford. However, the key difference was that The Folio Society wanted to produce books that were accessible to all and this was quite different to the rarefied heights of the prices of The Golden Cockerel Press. Given that one of the founding directors was Christopher Sandford who led The Golden Cockerel Press from 1933 to 1959, this focus on the quality of the book itself can come as no surprise. This included not just the quality of the paper and the bindings, but the illustrators commissioned too. It was built on production values that would result in books that were of value in themselves, not just for the excellence of the written content. The focus was quite different to that of the, by then, well established mass market publishers.

Those principles were, and still are, the art of the book. The Folio Society was founded in 1947 with similar principles as those of The Golden Cockerel Press, although catering to different markets.

Folio society books