Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World book
Empire: How Britain made the modern world by Niall Ferguson

The Folio Society is a British publishing company founded in London 1947 by Charles Ede. This company was designed to publish hand-crafted editions of the world’s greatest literature (both fiction and non-fiction) with highly artistic cover designs by various illustrators making the experience of reading more enjoyable as well as observing the beauty of book covers

The House at Pooh Corner book
The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

Each book in the Folio Society has a unique book cover design.

The Dam Busters book
The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill

They mostly consist of graphical illustrations in various artistic styles ranging from surrealism, to fantasy, to modernism to minimalism. The colours range from rich, bright and vibrant to dark and dull, stimulating different moods in the reader and matching the tones of the stories they’re based on.

The Hitchhiker
The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams


Some covers have typographic designs while others include photographic depictions.

Pride and Prejudice book
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

In most book covers, the titles and authors’ names don’t appear on the front where the illustrations take place, it is assumed there is not enough space or it detracts from the beauty of the image itself.
The spine of the book contains the story’s title and author’s name aligned horizontally while the company’s logo sits vertically upright at the bottom.

 

Folio Society logoThis here is the Folio Society’s original icon for their book covers. The Folio Society’s icon differs in appearance depending on the style of the book cover.
Some of the illustrators of the books design their own Folio icons while the original icon is incorporated on the spine in different colours and sizes.

 

 

Folio Bookcovers - original logo
Three examples of Book covers with the original Folio icon on the spine; Lone and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby, Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie and Sowing in the Wind by John Keay

 

Three book covers with distinct Folio design logos found mostly on the spines; The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill.
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As well as the images in the book covers, the typography in the covers range from classical/historical to modern fonts and come in different colours, shapes and sizes.

In the collection of Folio Society book covers, novels include Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, stories by Shakespeare edited by Peter Holland and Alice and Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, each of which are limited editions in the Folio Society and have their own unique book cover designs.

Facts

Folio’s first three titles were distributed in 1947.

Slipcases were used to store books safely during the 50’s. Dusk jackets were also used to protect the book covers before 1954.

John Letts and Halfdan Lynner incorporated the Folio Society in 1971.

Under the ownership of Letts and Lynner, the Folio Society published collected novels of many famous writers such as Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Elisabeth Gaskell and British-Polish modernist writer Conrad (Joseph).

Folio Society moved locations from 44 Eagle Street, Holborn in 1994 to Maguire Street, London in 2014.

Each year the Folio Society publishes more than 60 titles including multi-coloured volume sets.

Most of Folio’s titles are digitally typeset and then printed by offset printers in the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Folio’s book covers are mostly made of buckram (stiff cloth made of cotton and linen or horsehair) or book cloth, but some other covers are made of other various materials. Bonded leather is used for more expensive editions. Most bindings for fictional stories are designed by the illustrators.

References