The Folio Society is a privately owned London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. It produces illustrated hardback editions of classic fiction and non-fiction books, poetry and children's titles. Folio editions feature specially designed bindings and include artist-commissioned illustrations or researched artworks and photographs. Most editions come with their own slipcase. The Folio Society for many years had a bookshop in Holborn, London, but the bookshop closed inDecember 2016 when the company moved premises. Folio editions can be purchased only online through their website, post or over the telephone. Some editions are stocked in independent bookstores, Blackwell's in Oxford; Selfridges, Harrods and Hatchards in London also stock them.
History
The Folio Society was founded in 1947 by Charles Ede, Christopher Sandford, and Alan Bott. The firm's goal was to produce "editions of the world's great literature, in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of everyman." Folio and the Golden Cockerel Press shared premises in Poland Street until 1955. Subsequent offices were located in the Mayfair and Borough areas of London. The Folio Society moved to its location in 44 Eagle Street, Holborn, in 1994 – in 2017, their offices moved to 4 Maguire Street, London. The society issued its first three titles in 1947. In October of that year Tolstoy's Tales went on sale for sixteen shillings Tales was followed in November and December by George du Maurier's Trilby and a translation of Aucassin et Nicolette, establishing a pattern of monthly publication. In 1971 The Folio Society was incorporated and purchased by John Letts and Halfdan Lynner. Under their ownership, The Folio Society published the collected novels of Dickens, Trollope, Hardy, Elizabeth Gaskell and Conrad. Lord Gavron was owner and chairman of The Folio Society from 1982 until his death in 2015.
Membership and non-member sales
At its inception, The Folio Society operated as a membership-based organisation; as the list of titles grew, the membership commitment was established as 4 books per year. Since 2011, anyone has been able to purchase from the Folio Society list without committing to membership. On 1 September 2016, the company ended its membership-based structure.
Production trends and bindings
The company currently publishes more than 60 titles a year, including multi-volume sets. Most titles are digitally typeset, then printed by offset at printers in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Until 1954, most Folio books were issued with printed dust jackets, but during the latter half of the 1950s coloured card slip cases were introduced, to protect the books and retain focus on the decorative bindings. Solander boxes are generally used to protect the limited editions. Folio publications are printed in a range of standard sizes, and custom sizes are also employed. The most common material for bindings is buckram or a similar bookcloth, but there are many exceptions: aluminium foil was used in binding Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in 1971, and vegetable parchment in binding Voltaire's The Calas Affair in 1994; more commonly, marbled papers have been used for several volumes in recent years, either as endpapers or as board-papers of quarter bindings; moiré silk has been used sporadically over the years as a binding material, and leather and bonded leather are sometimes used, chiefly for the more expensive editions. Most bindings for works of fiction are designed by the illustrator. Non-fiction binding designers include David Eccles, Jeff Clements, and Neil Gower. Beginning in 2007, the company used traditional letterpress printing to publish each of Shakespeare's plays, as well as the Sonnets and Poems, in large-format editions. This landmark project of 39 volumes was finally completed in 2014.
Illustrators
Notable among the hundreds of illustrators of Folio books are-
