Which books would you like to see as Folio volumes?

For kicks, I thought I'd throw this one out there. My vote is for a Folio rendering of Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It'd be a perfect two-volume set, complete with loving renderings of vintage maps, Slavic art, and archival photographs.

What else would be a good addition to the collection?

I heartily second tatleriv's motion. I think West's classic would be a perfect 2 volume Folio edition as described.

In the "Limited Editions" thread I've already suggested George Borrows' Lavengro and The Romany Rye, but to complete my Folio Evelyn Waugh volumes, may we PLEASE have The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold?

Without a copy of Folio 60, I have no idea what's already been done, so forgive me when I ask: which Maugham have they done? I'd also like to see Screwtape Letters get a Folio treatment.

I'd like to see the complete works of Robert Burns as a Folio volume. (Or at least selected poems)

And as a big Sci-fi/Fantasy fan, I'd be really happy to have some of the classical works of the genre (besides the Lord of the Rings) - maybe the Amber books by Zelazny, or Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, or Pullman's 'His dark materials' trilogy.

You don't see the FS do much Fantasy and even less Sci-Fi. But if they did, I'd love to see Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, maybe Stranger in a Strange Land, or The Dosadi Experiment.

In historical fiction, I would think that Morgan Llywelyn's work would be right down their alley. Maybe a two volume Lion of Ireland and Pride of Lions or her newer Irish Century novels.

I suspect the newer works are mostly tied up in copyrights and other legal entanglements. That's why we get the "classics" and older novels that might be in the public domain or need the kick-start of a new edition.

Midwich Cuckoos would be nice. And, on the poetry front, have they ever done any substantive treatments of T. S. Eliot?

I was just thinking the other day that it would be lovely to have Patrick Leigh Fermor's Mani in an FS edition.

I second a vote for a CS Lewis set. Being a British press, I would have thought they would have already been all over that. Perhaps copyright issues?

Here's an additional vote for Screwtape Letters. I would also like to see Thomas Mann's "Joseph" series published, either as a set, or combined in a single volume as Knopf did in 1948 after the four-book series was completed, as Joseph and his Brothers.

I'm sure there will be Burns collection innthe on-going Folio Poets. But will we get a John Clare?

Re tatlerlv's question (message #3): Of Maugham's works, Folio has done Cakes and Ale and a four volume Collected Short Stories. Curiously missing are Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence, but I happily have the Limited Editions Club versions of these. No one has done a fine press version of The Razor's Edge as far as I can tell; perhaps the presses feel that 2 film versions suffice.

And re message #6: according to the Folio 60, Eliot's Four Quartets received the Folio treatment in 1968.

I'm pretty new to the FS, so I'm sorry if they've been published (probably they have) but I would love to have the complete works of Emily Dickinson illustrated and a set of Virginia Woolf's novels (I've only seen To the Lighthouse)

The complete works of Pablo Neruda would be a great edition too! (A bilingual edition if I may be so bold)

I also second the vote for Mann's Joseph as well. In my opinion, it is a much easier, and more satisfying, read than Magic Mountain

I just hope that if they do Joseph and his Brothers, they use the new translation by John Woods, and not the slightly stuffy Lowe-Porter translation.

Another book I'd like to see, as a Limited Edition probably, is an anthology of Japanese poetry through the ages, with woodblock prints and brushwork (maybe with a poem or two done in Japanese by hand by a calligraphy master). I've just seen such a book online in Russian and it really looked incredible (with an appropriate cost, unfortunately - $8,500).

Re #16: That sounds great! I remember seeing a gorgeous edition of Basho's Narrow Road to the Deep North printed on hand-made paper with beautiful hand-colored wood-block engravings at a book fair over 30 years ago just before the Japanese economy peaked, then crashed. I wish I had bought it--even if I couldn't read Japanese (still can't).

My wishes are for less-pricey books. I enjoy seeing the too expensive Psalters and Letterpress Shakespeares in the catalogue, but I still want more Barbara Pym, Ronald Firbank, and Rose Macaulay.

On a slightly more exotic note, I'd love to see a facsimile (or better yet, a new printing) of Joseph March's Jazz Age poem, The Wild Party, with the Reginald Marsh illustrations, AND, as the second half of a 2 volume set, Art Spiegelman's graphic treatment of the poem.

Not to get all PoMo but, since they've now included Vonnegut, it'd be great to see some Pynchon (V. especially) or even DeLillo (White Noise). And I second the Basho!

Re #15 Django - my request in #9 is hereby emended to specify the Woods translation of Joseph and his Brothers which I also prefer over the Lowe-Porter translation.

I'd also like to see The Glass Bead Game published as well. I recently obtained a first edition of this and read it again after thirty years. It remains one of my favorite novels. I simply would not be able to resist illustrated versions of both of these titles.

I'd like to see a wider choice of classics, and also more diaries, perhaps in Limited Editions (for instance: an extensive selection of John Evelyn's Diary or Robert Hooke's Diary).

Edited PS: Oh yes! Of course I forgot my best beloved book: La Vie mode d'emploi (Life, a User's Manual) by Georges Perec.

I think that they should publish more of Henry Williamson. A reproduction of Patriot's Progress with the woodcut illustrations deserves to be better known. it is one of the better concise novels on World War One. If they were brave enough they could do all the volumes of the Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. I would love to see these illustrated. Alternatively they could do more of the nature books to go alongside Tarka.

I think the Society should attempt more ambitious projects on limited runs, perhaps inviting (discounted?) advance subscriptions to ensure sufficient interest.

The Standard Edition of Freud's Complete Psychoanalytical writings (currently unavailable in hardback) is about 24 vols, and is due for an updated re-release sometime in 2009. The British Psychoanalytical Association enjoys sole rights to this, but perhaps would consider allowing Folio a share in a limited run (since Folio's editions would be more fancy, and appeal to a different market, to some extent). A sufficiently beautiful set (on a limited run) might command close to £1,000.

There is a gap for high-quality, high-concept, originally designed academic publishing. Folio should avoid becoming too cutesy a book-club.

Ive been trying to get my hands on that Freud set for a long time. I don't think it quite fits with the Society's aim, but I think that it would be neat for the Society to release it. I know that I wouldn't be able to afford it, but it would still be cool. Given their price on that Oxford World History set they had a year or two ago, I would imagine the price would be quite steep.

I really agree with the psychoanalytic writings idea - I would add Jung's collected works to Freud's! (you can tell I have no commercial sense at all...)

Just Man and His Symbols would probably suffice. With the new Religious Experience book, maybe FS is starting to dabble in psychology a bit

Well, if we delve into such depths, then I would like to see more books about music - biographies of composers or notable performers, a nice illustrated book about the history of music and so on.

I agree with message 1 - I have only begun reading and dipping into the black lamb and grey falcoln but am loving it, so a Folio edition would be nice.

I'd love a complete set of Virginia Woolf novels by Folio as they are books I return and return to - Especially Mrs Dalloway, The Waves and to a lesser extent To the lighthouse. Still haven't read Orlando yet, I am waiting to read it in a nice edition! They did do a collection of her essays a few years back which I have.

And another one - I think Parkinson's Law (and maybe also his 'In-Laws and Outlaws') would be a great addition to the British Humour series, at best with illustrations by Paul Cox.

(Do you think anybody from the FS reads these threads?)

I know my dad would love to see Fortunata y Jacinta out in Foilio, unless it has been released before?

I had thought about writing to the Society to suggest that they match their Darwin series with a couple of representative volumes of Marx and Freud, as the other great thinkers of the modern age - glad to see I'm not the only one thinking along those lines. That said, I don't think a complete edition of either is likely or all that desirable.

oh, and previous suggestions of Mann, Firbank, Fahrenheit 451 seconded but for me, I'd most like to see something by J G Ballard.

>28 I know at least one person working at FS has his library on LT because he told me so.

That's great, then. Let's hope some of our suggestions get through.

Recently the FS has published a number of politcal science titles. I wonder how many, like me, would welcome a series of classic political economy titles? I would like to see FS editions of my favorites: Robert Owen's A New View of Society, David Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Thomas Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations for starters.

Your last wish (Adam Smith) is likely to be fullfilled, because I think I saw it as a new title on a flier I received yesterday... (But I'm not at home at the moment, so I can't check.)

Malthus and Smith would be most welcome, and I would also like to see Hobbes' Leviathan, which I have never read but in excerpts and summaries, but which seems to me a seminal work.

Addenda: And I would nominate as one of the first political economy titles a work which seems particularly pertinent these days, Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, which is also a very entertaining read.

I would quite like to see The Lord Of The Rings in three volumes just as it is now but with one crucial differance- for it to be illustrated by Alan Lee.
I made the fatal mistake of buying the Lee edition in one volume which as you can imagine was a killer to read. So that would be really welcome, but meanwhile I might have to sell it & buy the three seperate ones just for the sake of my poor numb knees.
Oh & whilst their at work with that they can get started on an Alan Lee The Hobbit as well. :)

Re #35 - I did indeed return home to find temptation on my mat in the form of a three volume set of The Wealth of Nations as well as Mill's On Liberty and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I shall postpone these purchases until the summer sale.

Re #37 - it is is possible to have a readable single volume edition of The Lord of Rings. I have such a book published by Allen & Unwin running 1193pp including the maps and in a slipcase. Interestingly there is no date of publication information anywhere in the book. I think my father bought it for my mother in the early 70s. The slipcase measures 15 x 24 x 3cm (appx 6 x 9.5 x 1.25 ins) and the book plus slipcase together weigh only 835g or 1lb 13oz. It is, of course, printed on India paper.

BTW, I love India paper editions - they are far the most convenient thing for reading big books on trains. I have complete India paper editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Kipling and a few others. It is a pity more such editions are not published today - they also seem very resistant to foxing and browning. Anyone got a foxed India paper bible?

I would love to see a Folio edition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I'll get it in a flash if they ever release it.

I would love to see Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy and Cornish Trilogy as companions to the current Deptford Trilogy.

Also Fagles translation of The Aeneid in the same design as his current translations of The Odyssey and The Illiad

I'd like to see them do Kristen Lavransdatter.

I would like to see some of Timothy Findley's works especially "Famous Last Words"

Re #41: Wow, varielle, that's a book I haven't even thought of in decades! I read it back in the 60s and all I can remember about it was that it was full of sex (Kristin being quite a "goer" in particular), had too many characters with jawbreaking names for me to keep up with, and was told in the sort of medievalspeak I associated with low budget filmed versions of King Arthur. It HAS to be better than my memory or Undset wouldn't have been a Nobel prize winner. Maybe it was the translator's fault? Not to mention my own callow youth?

Speaking of medieval tales, I'd like to request Folio carry through on their R.L. Stevenson series by adding The Black Arrow which has been a favorite of mine since adolescent. They could do it in the series binding with their other titles Kidnapped, Catriona, etc., and reprint the classic N.C. Wyeth illustrations, as they did for Treasure Island or commission new ones from Philip Bannister, whose illustrations for the 2 above mentioned books are just as masterful as his ones for James' The Ambassadors. He really is a remarkable artist!

Rather than adding to the length of the previous posting, I'd also like to nominate Mika Waltari's Sinuhe: The Egyptian, in a new complete translation (the only previous English version being an abridgement). The novel is quite entertaining and the scholarship is excellent, and since I just returned from Egypt, I have a hankering to reread it.

It's my understanding that there is a new (and better) translation of Kristen Lavransdatter coming out soon, but I've not stumbled across it yet.

Love in the Time of Cholera as a companion edition to the FS edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I want Neil Packer to do the illustrations as he did with Solitude.

Also it would be nice to bring the collected works of Haruki Murakami into the FS mix starting with Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

varielle...i haven't heard that title mentioned in years, but YES it would make a great FS edition.

Kristen Lavransdatter also reminds me that FS has yet to publish any of the works of Halldor Laxness whose books I have enjoyed immensely over the years. We could start with his book Indpendent People

I remember many years ago reading a second or third edition of James Henry Breasted's History of Egypt. Aside from being an excellent and well-written book (although the history is a bit dated by now), the book itself was a marvel, gilt lettering on the spine and the frontcover. The illustrations throughout the book were magnificent. I've tried for years to find this particular edition without success. It would be nice to have an FS facsimile or something similar.

Has FS ever done T.E. Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I have a couple of early editions but I don't think I have ever seen an FS edition.

They made Seven Pillars of Wisdom in a fantastic way, similar to Lewis and Clark, In Darkest Africa, as well as to the Darwin book bindings. A definite must get

Our musings some months ago appear correct. Karamazov is now available in a matching binding as the 1998(?) Crime and Punishment. Yipee!
It appears that they are also bringing back the Hemingway set.

That's great about Karamazov. I hope they reprint the matching Crime and Punishment, and then go on to The Devils, etc. However, matching volumes in a series should be simultaneously available, as an added incentive, and also as a reassurance. I want my Dostoyevskys to match, but what if this is the last such offering, and next year the novels are rereleased and bound differently. 1998 was ten years ago - isn't this asking too much of collectors?

Separately, I was thinking FS could do something special with Beckett's Molloy/Malone Dies/The Unnameable trilogy - perhaps even a Limited Edition.

More Kafka. Any thoughts?

"More Kafka"? I didn't think FS currently published any Kafka. A great idea, anyway. Very easy to complete too, with only three novels and the short stories.

The Folio 60 says that the FS published The Trial back in 1967 with a second impression in 1968. Photogrammes by nigel Lambourne, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. That is the only Kafka title listed.

I hope if they do decide to publish more Kafka, they use the new, superior Pasley edition with Harman's translation of The Castle and Mitchell's translation of The Trial. When I read The Trial in German (the Brod edition with additions of deleted passage), I was struck by how Kafka's complex thoughts were often oversimplified by the Muirs--sometime to the point of being mistranslated. The new editions and translations therefrom are supposedly much closer to Kafka's original. Hopefully the Pasley edition of In the Penal Colony will be faithfully translated if the FS decides to undertake the project.

Any suggestions on illustrators for Kafka? I'd like to see the "photogrammes" from that earlier Folio edition--I thought the Alexieff pinscreen illustrations Orson Welles used in his film of The Trial had just the right nightmarish, yet mundane quality.

When I get back home in a couple of days I will scan some of the photogrammes for the group's inspection. I liked them very much - they are suggestive of the nightmare without being too explicit.

Re #57: Thanks, appaloosaman. That's very generous of you. If I knew how to upload such images where this group could see them, I'd upload the Alexeieff pinscreen illustrations from Welles' film.

I now find that I cannot work out how to post image files to these threads. Someone here did it recently with three or four color scans of illustrations - perhaps they can enlighten the rest of us how it's done as it's not obvious.

Until such time as I can figure this out I have replaced my horseback image on my profile with a scan of Lambourne's title page photogramme for The Trial - if you click to enlarge you will get a much bigger and more detailed image that is rather slow to download.

appaloosaman, I believe you are referring to the scans of several pages from Folio 60 that I "posted" on that thread. The images are not on LT, I uploaded them to my website and then I embedded a link to each one in my posts. If you do not have your own website I will would be happy to put them on my site. To imbed the image you just add the following http tag to your post: (less than symbol)img src=http://website/directory/file(greater than symbol).

Thanks for that! A little job for tomorrow morning...

I am just returning to the Folio Society and have no idea of the full list of books they have ever published, but I would like to see something on the pioneers of photography (Fox Talbot and Julia Cameron, Atget etc).

Not sure if this fits with the Folio Society ethos?

Re #62: If it doesn't, it should. I think it would be great to see a multi-volume set on the pioneers of photography--early travel photography, early color photography, early reportage, etc. I have a few books on these subjects now--very expensive ones--but it would be nice to have a work that was a cohesive history of the birth and early development of the photographic image.

Django - I'm glad someone agrees - the birth and early development of photography is an interest of mine too.

A bookseller with an interest in this subject gave me some names of authors/authorities on the subject but I lost the piece of paper!

There is something about the early attempts at capturing images, and about the theory behind how one might do it that I find fascinating.

One book worth owning is Masters of Early Travel Photography. It gives a brief (8 page) precis about the birth of photography, covering a few technical processes that briefly flourished, then faded, and has some outstanding examples of the work of early globetrotting photographers. I particularly liked Francis Firth's crisp images of Egyptian antiquities taken in the late 1850s, autochromes (an ancestor of color photography which used microscopic grains of dyed potato starch) of the Middle East from the first quarter of the 20th century, and Samuel Bourne's record of the India of the Imperial Raj from the 1860s and 70s.

A history of WW I published recently also had some wonderful color photos, and recently digital image processing made it feasible to make prints of the astonishingly modern-looking color photographs made by the Russian Prokusin-Gorsky, who documented Czarist Russia in the decade before WW I.

leonb, chase: There is a Freud set available at Powell's Rare Books:

The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 Volumes

Sigmund Freud / Hogarth Press
Set Hardcover / Rare Books
$1200.00

In case you are interested...

Many thanks for the heads up. I see that go up on ebay every once in a while too. I think that it is just a little out of my price range at the moment

Thanks, jveezer - I checked it out and the covers looked pretty faded. Also, they were without their dust-jackets, not that I care much for these (even with FS books I'm binning the slipcases and solander boxes, which I'm sure will outrage many devotees!). There's also another set in a Kensington bookseller (Harrington) - these books are probably in better condition, since they still have their jackets - however, this set is about four times the price. Really, I much prefer new. A slightly revised Standard Edition will be released next year in hardcover - my understanding is that the editor will amend the text here and there, but for the bulk retain the original classic Strachey version. I reckon I'll hang on for this. I know, of course, FS would never undertake such a project!

What about a FS society edition of Uncle Remus? Maybe illustrated by someone quirky like Quentin Blake? I have the LEC edition with illustrations by Seong Moy and had another nicely illustrated edition that I can't remember the details of...

"How duz yo' sym'tums seem ter segashuate?" sez Brer Rabbit, sezee.
Brer Fox, he wink his eye slow, en lay low, en de Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin'.

Yes, I love these stories. I was just telling a friend about the Tar Baby tale last night!

I also have the edition with Seong Moy's illustrations which, while attractive enough, for me don't have the true idiomatic flavor the tales need. I've never seen the classic illustrations by Arthur Burdette Frost but suspect they, like the ones by E.W.Kemble, might prove to offensive in these politically correct days. (I must admit Kemble's depictions of Jim in his Huckleberry Finn illustrations bother me.)

Call me philistine, but I wish the artists at the Disney studios would have illustrated the Remus stories. Their depictions of the stories retold in "Song of the South," are for me the ultimate and quintessential embodiments of the Remus stories. (Unhappily, that wonderful film seems to have fallen afoul of P.C. sensibilities, as it hasn't been revived or issued on video in decades.)

The Song of the South is my all time favorite Disney movie memory. Alas, My kids never got to see it.

Definitely Kafka, Davies and Marquez. I also would really love to see Yasunari Kawabata. In addition to great books, they would offer great opportunities for illustration.

As an enthusiast of the game, I would definitely buy Kawabata's The Master of Go in Folio, but I don't know much about his other books - how would you describe them?

I'll post a vote for Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver.

Oldrottonhat - I too love Carver stories so I'd second your vote.

How about Robertson Davies?

Re #75: varielle, what works beside The Deptford Trilogy? Or did you mean all of them?

Well, I was thinking of everything, but that would be quite a lot.

"Salterton Trilogy"
"Cornish Trilogy"
First two novels of the unfinished "Toronto Trilogy"
"The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks"

Are there others?

Re: 73. Definitely agree on Carver.

Master of Go is a great book, but definitely atypical for Kawabata since it is so much more journalistic. Kawabata's books are spare, lovely, lyrical. The action (such as it is) occurs in the spaces between the characters, often in tightly focused environments (such as the tea ceremony in A Thousand Cranes or the kitchen where so much of the action occurs in The Sound of the Mountain). I would strongly recommend Snow Country for anyone looking for a place to begin.

It occurred to me today that given the Society has published almost everything by Fitzgerald (but why not a collection of short stories to go with the novels, eh?), and a hefty chunk of Hemingway, they would be a little remiss in not giving us something by Faulkner. The Sound & The Fury would be the obvious choice, I suppose.

Maybe it's already been done but I would love to see a FS edition of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Not sure I agree with the message in the book but it's a great read.

http://www.librarything.com/work/2791688/details/32713513

N11284, I agree with you on Atlas Shrugged. It would even make for a good LE selection as it meets the length criteria that the Society appears to have for Fine Editions. I would also like to see The Fountainhead and Anthem.

What about Maurice Druon? I enjoyed his Accursed Kings series a lot.

I third the Atlas Shrugged limited edition idea

I would LOVE to see them publish Seamus Heaney's "Beowulf".

Ooh, yes, Heaney's Beowulf. My only copy is paperback, and it's still kinda pretty, but I'd jump at a Folio version.

I just discovered that my favourite book by my favourite Swiss writer, Nicolas Bouvier, has been published in English, it is L'Usage du Monde, in English The Way of the World, and an excellent translation by all accounts (edited to remove the touchstones as they went to wrong book and a different author). I think this and all his other books would be great in FS editions.

#85 & 86: I third the motion for a Folio edition of Heaney's Beowulf. I have a hardback copy but I would ditch it in a heartbeat for a Folio edition!

I would love to get some of James Clavell's books in Folio editions, also a few Cormac McCarthy titles would be nice!
And how about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Catcher in the Rye?

Yes - subject to copyright problems I really don't think it can be too long before we see a FS edition of The Catcher in the Rye. The FS has set its cap at greater penetration of the US and inevitably that means choosing titles that have particular appeal to that market.

Re #90: I doubt we will see a Folio Society edition of Catcher in the Rye until Mr. Salinger shuffles off this mortal coil. As he apparently has several unpublished works in his possession, it would be a wonderfully fitting nose-thumbing were he to contract with the FS to publish a Limited Edition of his Complete Works, including First Editions of those unpublished works.

Incidentally, I have heard the Catcher still sells something like 250,000 copies per year; do you really think the current publishers would welcome another company cutting into their profits?

I am not sure that there is a hardback copy of The Catcher in the Rye in print. Would a FS edition at say $40 really eat into the profits of the paperback editions? It would most likely be a second copy for most FS members.

Five books I’d love to see, each of which would slot in perfectly to the topic categories that Folio Society offers…

Germinal by Emile Zola (World Fiction)

Watership Down by Richard Adams (British Fiction)

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (American Fiction)

Legends of Ancient China (Myths & Legends)

In Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus (Medieval History)

…I realize that Erasmus is questionable in the Medieval History category, but it’s difficult to put it anywhere else. So, why those five? First, all of them are difficult to find in hardbound edition (at least here in the U.S.), and provide a unique opportunity for FS to publish for collectors of Western Lit some cannon that’s not readily available. Second, all of those titles offer a chance for FS to make them shine either by illustration or by fine typography. An illustrated Watership Down? Yes please. A illuminated In Praise of Folly? I’ll take it.

All of those titles are easy to produce as well — they aren’t huge books that require a lot of paper (unlike pushing out a Herculean effort like Atlas Shrugged), so there’s a decent room for profit. FS has to consider titles that are cost-effective, yet attract a wide readership. I’m sure everyone’s heard — if not have read — everything from the list, and wouldn’t mind having a FS edition gracing their shelves.

Lastly, and I hope I don’t offend anyone with this: but as a 40-year-old Generation X reader, I’d really like to see some more titles that speak to my generation or younger from FS. Sure, it’s GREAT that FS and Easton Press offers a multitude of classics… but there are not enough modern titles by those publishers. The bulk appeals to an aging demographic, and I for one would love to see some titles of books that are part of my generation. That’s why Vonnegut makes my list while Dickens doesn’t.

Well, those are my picks. I would love to see others still (would someone please publish Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais please? that would make a great Fine Edition title), and the list of contemporary authors that should be graced by FS is without end (Bellow, Irving, Mailer, etc.). I’m sure a LOT of people are going to disagree with some of my reasoning… but hey. I want what I want. :)

#92: all of Salinger's titles are available in hardcover editions from the original publisher, but for all of us FS fans, they are a poor substitute. I agree it would be great to see illustrated editions from FS. I'm sure Salinger is not easy to deal with on these publishing issues (after all, no Library of America Salinger edition yet), but it would be great.

#93 I completely agree on wanting to see more contemporary authors. FS has published Possession, Remains of the Day and the New York Triology in the last two years, so perhpas we will see more.

Good choice coffeemate. I too would like to see a Myths and Legends of China - and Japan too. Germinal would be a fine choice too - they did a good Nana a few years ago. Gargantua and Pantagruel is certainly worthy of a limited edition - I loved that book as a teenager.

FS published In Praise of Folly in Betty Radice's translation in 1974. Its got a pleasing binding but a new edition might allow for more whimsical illustrations. The 1974 edition has Metsijs's portrait of Erasmus as its frontispiece and the remaining illustrations are color photos of the 1515 text with marginal illustrations by Holbein. Copies come up on Ebay from time to time.

I'd also like to see more Robertson Davies; Salterton Trilogy and Cornish Trilogy.

A few GK Chesterton's would be nice, too.

Definitely more Chesterton

One of Robertson Davies' favourite fellow Canadian authors was the humourist, Stephen Leacock. I'd love to see FS versions of some of Leacock's work, such as 'Literary Lapses' or 'Nonsense Novels':

"Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions."

I don't think they'd do it (since they already have an edition of Alice in Wonderland), but I wish they'd do the special edition treatment to a replica of the Salvador Dali illustrated Alice in Wonderland.

Re #92: appaloosaman, I work in the entertainment industry, and I can guarantee that Salinger's publishers (or their legal advisors) would be adamantly opposed to losing one NICKEL of profit from their cash cow. You should have seen the fight when a producer I worked with 20 years ago tried to produce a low-budget remake of For Whom the Bell Tolls. The producer had somehow got hold of the foreign rights for distributing a motion picture based on that book, and was intending to remake it strictly for the foreign market. Both Scribners, who own the publishing rights, and Paramount (Gulf-Western) who made the original film adaptation in 1946, threatened legal action if he took this course--which he actually had a legal right to do. He finally dropped the idea, realizing those entities had much deeper pockets and were perfectly willing to make him spend millions in legal fees to keep him from making any money from a remake that would have undoubtedly been a marginal success at best.

Re # 93: In Praise of Folly was published in a very fine edition by the Limited Editions Club in 1943 with illustrations by the great Lynd Ward pertinent to the World War that was then raging. This is probably the finest modern edition of Erasmus and can be somewhat pricey if you find a good edition on Abebooks. The Heritage Press did a very nice version a few years later with new illustrations by Franz Masereel which I prefer to the old Folio Society edition. (Both of these versions used Carter's translation.)

Coffeemate, I think the Folio Society has actually done a remarkable job of balancing classics with newer works--and not just in fiction, but in non-fiction where they have given us wonderful editions of Gerald Durrell and others.

Wow, so many highly intellectual choices! And fine ones, too, but it makes me feel a bit silly about my own 'wish list'.

I'd love to see some Shel Silverstein, particularly The Missing Piece Meets the Big O. And Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. I'd also jump at Gone With the Wind. And have they ever done any R.W. Emerson? (probably)

I should mention, I'm fairly new to the Folio Society, so I realize that it's possible I just missed some of these.

The FS likes to publish a few children's books - particularly ones that also appeal to adults. I live in hope that the FS might publish editions or a combined edition of James Thurber's The Wonderful O and The Thirteen Clocks - there are no better books for reading aloud to children around 10 or so.

#101 Don't worry. This group is more fun than snobby. From participating in these discussion for a while now, I think we're mostly that slowly vanishing breed of general interest readers who move easily among genres looking for books that engage us whether they're classics or well-written popular works or children's books.

Lolita is the greatest book I've ever read and, though the version I have is a very elegant looking paperback, it's still a paperback. I'm really very surprised that FS still hasn't published Lolita, and I hope to see it in the future.

I'd also love to see Watership Down as a Folio book. This seems like a fairly reasonable hope, as the FS has recently put out The Wind in the Willows, another animal fiction book.

As far as less likely wishes, I'd really like to see some more postmodernist writers such as Pynchon and also some more Vonnegut, but I realize that Slaugherhouse-Five is probably all we'll get.

Oh, I second Lolita and third (or whatever number is appropriate) Watership Down.

... or Nabokov's other books, which personally I like better than Lolita (the road movie part drags on a bit).

If I remember correctly what I read in a former thread in this group, there are publishing rights with Nabokov's work, which explain why any of his books were never published by FS...

I second overthemoon on Lolita: I like the first part very much, much better than the second part. (I suppose this is what you call road movie part...)

Pepys, yes, I mean the bit where they take off in a car together.

I agree with overthemoon and Pepys re Nabokov. Let us have Pale Fire first, as that needs to be better known than Lolita.

Well, actually, the road stuff did drag a bit. But the rest of it was so sparkling that I forgive with open heart.

And I'm afraid I've never read any of his other stuff, so there ya go.

Yes - Pale Fire is very good. One of the very best "unreliable narrator" works - a hugely enjoyable genre.

I liked The Defense by Nabakov very much, as well, but recognize it would be well down the list to be published.

How about "A Clockwork Orange"? Has that ever been done by FS?

Gistak, I've just checked my Folio 60 and there's no sign of A Clockwork Orange, so I daresay they haven't done it yet.
It would be a great idea though.

I just finished reading the Folio Magazine and it indicates that both Dracula and The Raj Quartet will soon be available. Does anyone have confirmation of this?

I remember seeing an announcement about the Raj Quartet, but this is the first I've heard about a Dracula. It's rather surprising that they haven't done one by now. Any votes for illustrator?

Abigail Rorer has illustrated the FS edition of Dracula. There are four of her illustrations in the latest issue of Folio Magazine. The frontispiece is in colour and the other three are b&w.

What I would really empty my wallet for is a leather bound set of Karl Marx works. Especially "Das Kapital".

The only high quality sets you can get at the moment in Germany have been printed in the now deceased socialist part of Germany.

Somehow I cannot bring myself to buy the paperback version of such an influential book.

Another one I'd love to see is a one-volume edition of His Dark Materials. Given how relatively recently the books were written, there might be some problems, though.

#119 -- I too would love a FS edition of His Dark Materials, either a single volume or boxed set.

Another children's classic I would love a FS edition of is Black Beauty ... or Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind. Two of the great horse books I adored as a child.

I second a Das Kapital. Its a classic in the Western Canon, despite the destruction his ideas have wrought.

While I am on philosophy, Kant's Critique and Hegel's Philosophy of History are other works in the Western philisophical canon. In addition, I really liked Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison; perhaps his Cost of Discipleship? How about Calvin's Institutes?

These are fine suggestions.

Now for something completely different, I'd like to see a nice edition of Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al--illustrated in the style of pre-1920s baseball cards.

hmmm never heard of that one...FS has yet to do a baseball book (or any real sports book) but it is high time they started!

I am a devotee of Latin American Literature and would love to see an FS edition of The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas.

Re #124: Lardner's book is a true classic of humorous fiction, and was acknowledged as an influence by Hemingway, and its use of highly distinctive vernacular to create character even won the praise of Virginia Woolf! Speaking of Hemingway, Larder's editor was Max Perkins who also edited Hemingway (and F. Scott Fitzgerald).

For those who don't care for sports, let me hasten to say that there isn't very much about baseball in the book--the main character just happens to be a professional baseball player in the days before, during and after WW I.

I agree with 119/120. His Dark Materials!

After reading an article in Slightly Foxed magazine about Kilvert's Diary I went on the search for a copy, eventually finding one at the very most top shelf in my dad's library. So far I really love it but the condition of the book prevents me from reading any further. The book has turned orange in colour and the pages are choked with acid, literally falling to bits.
A new paperback is proving hard to find for a reasonable price & I would like something enduring.
Even though I haven't read it through yet this book looks like the making of a treasured folio edition already.

>129: Journal of a Country Curate, selections from Kilvert's diary. Published 1977.

Lady Lulu, check out www.abebooks.co.uk, there are plenty of listings.

We may now scratch Screwtape Letters off of our list because its now offered in the Christmas Sale listing on the FS website along with some other equally interesting titles.

Teebweeb, how did you get to a Christmas Sales list? I still can't see any books other than LE Wind in the Willows when I log on.

Now I'm going to have to get my act together when the revamped renewal page comes back. Sure hope it was worth waiting for the second offer because I really want Screwtape and who knows what else on the sale list I can't see. Now, do I dare ask you to list some of the "other equally interesting titles"? It will probably drive me crazy not being able to see them myself or order anything.

Re 133: haniwitch - I'm fairly sure that it's because I've renewed my membership that they're visible to me at the initial page after logging in. There are no less than four pages of listings, so please forgive me for not listing them all, but here are a few of those that are interesting to me:

The Apocrypha
The Art and Spirit of Paris
The Best of Saki
Christmas Books
A Dance to the Music of Time
A Christmas Carol
Dracula
The Eagle of the Ninth
First Folio
The Imitation of Christ
The Kelmscott Chaucer
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
The Tales of Beatrix Potter (both sets)
The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World

Most of the ones teebweeb listed have been offered before, but of special interest are the new offerings: Stephen Faulks' Birdsong, Jan Morris' Venice, George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind, Alison Uttley's The Country Child, The Complete Prose of Woody Allen, and a new Richard Dawkins book (for me, anyway), Climbing Mt. Improbable. There are others, including an interesting 3 volume history of the Third Reich, but I had to close the page before I did something drastic.

How does the Dracula edition look?

Thank you very much!

#134
I knew I shouldn't have asked. I think it's better that there were too many for you to list them all. I already see two more besides Screwtape that I'd love to have. Even more frustrating, the website still won't let me in--no new renewal so far for Canada. If they only knew how willing I am to part with my money.

I resisted ordering for 6 weeks, so today I had to order from the Christmas Sale. My big problem was that there were too many to choose from. I did order Dracula as I had been looking for it.
--BJ

A mention of William Least Heat Moon in another group reminded me of Blue Highways which I'd quite like in an FS edition, and also two favourites by Jim Harrison, Dalva and The Road Home. (I removed the touchstones from Road Home because it takes you to the wrong book). These would be fantastic to illustrate.

"Another children's classic I would love a FS edition of is Black Beauty .."
Yes, this is a surprising omission - I hadn't realised that the Society has never done it. It's maybe a difficult book to market. It's not really a children's book (tho' a "Young Folks'" abridgment was produced in 1902), but it's written in a very direct, simple way reminiscent of (but not as cloying as) Sunday School storybooks of the time (from memory there's hardly a chapter more than 3 or 4 pages long). It's really a classic contribution to the campaign for animal rights, its very simplicity making its many scenes of human brutality to horses almost unbearable to read.
The perfect illustrator for the book would have been the late Charles Keeping, who did a complete Dickens for the Society. I can just visualise how he would have treated the poignant closing image of Chapter 40 (Poor Ginger). Actually I'd rather not visualise it; just thinking about the scene brings back the tears.....
PS I've just done a google search, and found that Keeping did illustrate the book, for the publisher Gollancz in 1987; it was the last book he worked on. So there: it's ready and waiting for the Society to snap it up, commission David Eccles to do a new cover and bring it out for 2010!

featherwate -- Let's hope someone from the FS is lurking and takes your advice!

Yes, Black Beauty is a story that is emotionally very hard on the reader. Once read, it's never forgotten, but not the kind of book one can go back to with repeated pleasure--at least for me (after seeing the movie "Babe," I gave up eating pork, so if I don't monitor my reading about animals I might turn vegetarian).

I'd vote for some of the better (i.e., earlier) Angela Thirkell books. I know there are some Thirkell fans who would push for the entire Barsetshire series, but only a few titles really stand out (e.g., "Pomfret Towers", "Northbridge Rectory", "The Brandons", etc.). Based on past editions of works from the 30's, FS could find the perfect illustrator, and perhaps some of the misprints so common in the Moyer-Bell reprints could be corrected.

Love the Robertson Davies idea. But Of Human Bondage is the book I always thought the society should publish.

What about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel? Have any of you guys read this book? It's a wonderful mixture of Dickensian style and humour with fantasy - a combination hard to beat in my books.

Reading it for the second time now, and again enjoying it enormously. A good hardcover pseudo Dickens FS treatment would be great, in my opinion (+ it's British Fiction at its best, + it was a bestseller)

BorisG I agree with your idea of putting up Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell as a candidate. I would also like them to consider The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. I have read the book three times. The Dickensian style of the book is just superb and it is a riveting read.

Thanks for the lead on The Quincunx, HMOKeefe, I didn't know about the book. Sounds very interesting, will check it out when I'm next at the library.

Thanks for the tip. I had not heard of it, but I've requested The Quincunx from my local library as well. And I love Dickens. But from reading member reviews, it seems like a book that is difficult and difficult to love, just compelling. Interesting.

(A small remark about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel - it is a *very* easy read - though also around 1000 pages, these pass without you noticing, and exactly because of its readability and accessibility (+ lots of humour) I have used it several times to introduce people to the Fantasy genre without them realizing they were being introduced to it.

And afterwards it was too late *evil cackle* They were hooked.)

Edit: I've also used it once for a harder task - introducing the 19th-century style novel to a friend of mine (also a SF&F fan) - and to my delight it succeeded, where Little Dorrit and David Copperfield failed.

Robert Musil and Hermann Broch might be due for a visit.

Since they've tackled The Right Stuff, I'd love to see more Tom Wolfe, maybe The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or The Great Shark Hunt would be fun, too. Since Ralph Steadman's illustrations already exist for much of the above, they wouldn't have to commission any more artists.

Getting away from New Journalism, I'd like to see some of Theodore Roosevelt's or Issak Walton travel/hunting writings make it in.

And departing altogether from non-fiction, I'd love to see C. S. Lewis's space trilogy get the loving treatment it deserves. Too much is made about the damn Narnia books. I think these were his crowning achievements in fiction. Each book is so different. You have the straight sci-fi (Out of the Silent Planet), the psyche-spiritual-delic philosophical sci-fi (Perelandria), and the dystopian fantasy (That Hideous Strength). They all stand completely on their own yet richly complement each other. Chesterton's Man Who Was Thursday is another request.

Okay. This was a greedy list. I'll be quiet for a while.

Boris, I'm actually quite surprised by your experiences with Jonathan Strange! Most people I know thought it was only 'okay', and I personally couldn't get past page 200. And I'm no stranger to either fantasy or 1000+ page counts. I just thought it was boring. Someone told me that I had to go just a little further and it would get interesting, but after devoting a week to slogging through even that much, I couldn't take it any more. My 'to-be-read' shelves were calling...

But kudos to getting new readers hooked! Always a good feeling, when someone else gets sucked in by a personal favorite.

I liked Jonathan Strange a lot (that's high enough praise from me!), and also raced through it. Such wonderful, limpid style, and the plot was breathtaking. One of few recent books I'd reread.

Have they ever offered the complete works of William Blake?

It seems everyone prints the Songs of Innocence and of Experience. I would like to see them offer the others.

#154

beatlemoon, I guess it's one of those chacun a son gout cases. I personally enjoyed it a lot; but I don't think it would have got any better for you after 200 pages - Clarke has a very even writing style with almost no low or high points, so if one didn't like page 1, one probably wouldn't like the rest either.

Here are two characteristic snippets, I'd be very interested to know what other members think of it:

1) (the beginning): "Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.
They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed any one by magic - nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble upon a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single hair upon any one's head. But, with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire."

2) (from a conversation between two quite disagreeable gentlemen): "... Oh, yes! He has bought a house in Hanover-square! You had not heard that, I dare say? He is as rich as a Jew. He had an old uncle called Haythornwaite who died and left him a world of money. He has - among other trifles - a good house and a large estate - that of Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire."
"Ha!" said the tall man drily. "He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply."
"Oh, indeed!" cried the small man. "Some friends of mine, the Griffins, have an amazingly rich old uncle to whom they have paid all sorts of attentions for years and years - but though he was at least a hundred years old when they began, he is not dead yet and it seems he intends to live for ever to spite them, and all the Griffins are growing old themselves and dying one by one in a state of the most bitter disappointment."...

It was a few years ago now that I tried to read it - maybe three years ago? - and I remember being disappointed, because I liked Clarke's style, and the summary of the story appealed to me, I just recall being annoyed by the pacing. I remember thinking "okay, when is something going to happen"?

However, perhaps I will pick it up again and give it another try one of these days. Reading the passages you've posted I think to myself "I like; this is good! What was I thinking back then?" So who knows? I've changed opinions on books before, usually because I've changed. Maybe I was just feeling antsy back then. :-)

That's one of those funny things about books. Some people wonder how a book can be re-read, but truly, a book is never the same twice. Because you are never the same as you were the first time you read it. At least, that's what I've always found...

beatlethemoon, I'm glad you liked the passages, and if it might make you retry the book - so much the better! I also agree completely with the book never being the same twice when you re-read it (or at least about you perceiving it differently every time).

But I know what you mean regarding the pacing in Jonathan Strange, and must somewhat shamefully admit that not *much* is going to happen until the end of the book in terms of happening per se. Thinking of it, it seems to me that the plot is almost secondary to the description and development of characters, the setting, and in general to Clarke's exploration of the magical England she created. For this reason, for example, I enjoyed her footnotes very much, though they contribute nothing to the story itself, and are by themselves very long and leisurely paced.

Edit: thinking of it again, once things *do* start to happen (very much towards the end of the book), Clarke has some very powerful and riveting action sequences, which stand out all the more because of the slow pace of the rest of the book. Then again, I can understand if such a way of book-writing is not to everybody's taste.

#153 I've written to them once of twice requesting Hunter S Thompson. I can't imagine it ever happening, any more than I expect them to follow up my requests for The Naked Lunch or Crash, but a man can dream.

And why not Slouching Towards Bethlehem or The White Album by Joan Didion, eh? Or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? Actually that last one might be in with a shot.

I'm pretty happy about them staying the @##% away from William S. Burroughs (though some Edgar Rice Burroughs would be okay). However, I'd love to see Didion or Kesey get the treatment. And I'm surprised they didn't tackle On the Road yet. I think it's a way overrated book, but it's pretty canonical.

As long as we're talking so-called "counter-culture" books, more Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle... hell, a whole box set) and A Confederacy of Dunces would be most welcome. And what about Revolutionary Road?

I like the idea of A Confederacy of Dunces. How about In Cold Blood or has that been done? On the Road deserves it too.

I still say that Maugham is way underserved by the Folio Society.

Agreed re: Maugham. I'd love to see The Summing Up and all the obvious novels. I'd also like to see more Waugh come back into circulation, particularly Scoop.

Yes, please, more Maugham and Waugh. We already discussed about Maugham in the "Complete Works" thread, but Waugh also deserves to join this category.

re #162
I like the idea of A Confederacy of Dunces and how about The Memory of Running

Like some of the others above, I too would like to see more Tom Wolfe, more Vonnegut, as well as Hunter S. Thompson, Kesey, On the Road, A Confederacy of Dunces and a reprinting of Evelyn Waugh.

I would also like to see FS complete J.G. Farrell's Empire trilogy by adding Troubles and The Singapore Grip to The Siege of Krishnapur.

Well, it will never happen, as Finley Peter Dunne is too American for the Folio Society, but I wish someone would bring out a nice edition of selections from Mr. Dooley, which would be wonderful clothed in the same dress as the compediums of Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, etc.

After all, how can the members of this group not love a man who said:

"The first thing to have in a library is a shelf. From time to time, this can be decorated with literature. But the shelf is the main thing."

And if there are objections along the lines of: "a 19th century political satirist has nothing to say of interest to the modern reader," consider this:

"High finance isn't burglary or obtaining money by false pretenses, but rather a judicious selection from the best features of those fine arts."

or:

"A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case."

and of particular interest following the recent US election:

"A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer & remains at large."

Well, I think he's still worth reading!

Django, with such quotes, I second and third the notion. The shelf one is particularly good. :p

And, some Parkinson please! Parkinson's Law is a classic by any standards, and I'm always annoyed when I can't find it at bookshops (Penguin Classics still have it in print, but I *never once* saw a copy of at a bookshop). I'd be also very happy to see In-laws and outlaws, both with the illustrations by O. Lancaster, if possible.

My interest is peaked. Please recommend first Parkinson volume to read.

#169

Both are very much recommended, the better reading order probably being Parkinson's law first and In-laws and outlaws second. The former has the advantage of being in print.

Looking at his list of works (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Northcote_Parkinson), I see he was quite a prolific author, but I haven't read any of the others, so cannot comment. (I've only tried Mrs. Parkinson's Law but liked it much less than the aforementioned two.)

#155 LolaWalser...I enjoyed Jonathan Strange myself and I really can't fathom why except that it was very different from what I expected. My SIL who lives in England, loved it. My BIL, however preferred to use it as ballast. He is in the Royal Navy

Anyone else interested in seeing more Chesterton?

Heck yes. Orthodoxy, Man Who Was Thursday, Heretics, Father Brown mysteries, etc. etc.

The Father Brown books have been made, but Orthodoxy and Heretics would be fun.

Yes! I'd definitely love to see more Chesterton.
Ignatius Press is publishing the entire collected works, so I already have a lot of his work, but there no such thing as having too much Chesterton!

How about a number of Peter Ackroyd's works? Hawksmoor and London in particular (with Blake already on offer).

Any Ackroyd fans here?

I tried getting through London by Ackroyd before a visit there. I was amazed by the wealth of his knowledge, but ultimately could not plow my way through the dull pacing of the book and gave up somewhere around the beginning of the 19th century.

Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday definitely gets my vote!

Am I alone in wishing Folio would publish an edition of Wells' Mr. Britling Sees it Through, perhaps illustrated with period photographs?

#177 Once you are done with London: A Biography you'll have to move on to Ackroyd's Thames:Sacred River which I think is better written and more enjoyable.

Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Immortality

For European literature, I second Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and would add Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March with period photographs.

Im not up to date with what has been done in the past by the FS but i was thinking today it would be nice to have a large format edition of Grays Anatomy?

has it been done already?

Or on the classic science theme i would like any other Darwin books?...Like his orchid book etc...

And more than the current two titles from the work of Richard Dawkins....

My vote would definitely go to doing Sophocles' Theban Plays. In my admittedly very biased opinion, FS produces too many non-classics, and should emphasize the true classics. e.g. I'd be quite happy to forgo most of the Conrads, du Mauriers (there is such a thing as too much imo) for just one well made Greek playwright.

Being no expert though, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they have published Sophocles before. (I did a search at ebay, nothing there).

I've just noticed new Letterpress Shakespeares on the site.... *drool*

Alas - no Sophocles. However, there is an Aeschylus - The Oresteia - published in 1984. Perhaps we could petition for Robert Fagles' translation of The Theban Plays since FS has published his versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey.

I second (or third) the desire for more Greek classics. Complete works of Sophocles (or at least the Theban Plays), Euripides, Aristophanes, etc. would be fantastic. It seems strange to me that they have so few on offer.

Aristophanes would be great; and although I'm happy with my Lattimore translations of The Complete Greek Drama, I have no objection to seeing new translations by Fagles of the tragedies.

I DO take exception to the remark that Conrad's work doesn't fall in the "true classics" category. If Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent, and Under Western Eyes aren't classics, I don't know what post-Shakespearean work in English deserves that appellation. Which brings up another point--Conrad's work at least doesn't require translation: the translations by Fagles, Lattimore, Collard may all have their own felicities, but I doubt any of of the translators would claim that their work reproduces the effect of reading the Greek originals.

#186 - I wasn't trying to say Conrad has no classics, or even lots, just that I don't feel 15 odd works of his is not 'fair' when we have no Sophocles. I personally love what I've read of Conrad.

Children of Hurin produced in the same bindings as the current Tolkien works would be much appreciated

I would love to see Children of Hurin in bindings that match the other Tolkien bindings, too.

Also, some Neal Stephenson books - Snow Crash and Diamond Age especially.

And if it weren't impossible I would definitely want to see Harry Potter done right with the Folio Society treatment.

Hello. This website is new to me.

I have a decent amount of Folio Society books, from aproximately the years 1997 to 2003. I have just briefly started to go through them and have seen 1997 and 2003, so at this stage it is safe to say some will be earlier and maybe some more recent, but not by much as far as recent is concerned.
Crime and Punishment by FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY reprinted in 1997 is one of them. It is what helped me find this site. Would anyone here be able to tell me a really good venue to sell all of these books? eBay is a given, but these days it is not my first choice. Also where can I find a website that has a massive database of ISBN-13 numbers?

Post here or PM me or email me through the site (I will adjust me settings to accept emails), if that is an option to let me know. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Paul

EDIT: I would be interested in private sales. A couple have already contacted me and I will er putting my list togather today to send to those interested. My email is listed in my profile. email me directly so I can send you a list if interested.

Back to the topic of the original post: Richard Adams' Watership Down.

I haven't got my copy of Folio 60 yet, but Google is telling me that the Folio Society has never published any of L. Frank Baum's Oz stories. Is this true? Because if it is, I would love to see the whole set done right...

I don't have the Folio 60 - does anyone know if FS has ever done The Princess Bride? I would love to have a Folio copy of it.

Re #193: According to my Folio 60, 3 Princes (Caspian, Machiavelli's, and the ones in the Tower), but they have ignored the distaff side.

I second your suggestion, beatlemoon; The Princess Bride is one of my favorites.

I third the suggestion ... and also Watership Down

Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

#196 Optimistic...but I'd buy it.

#197 Me too.

I would enjoy seeing an FS edition of The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz.

The complete Aubrey - Maturin series?

Le comedie humaine?

Both I imagine, would need to be published over a number of years.

I am guessing some Balzac must already be available via FS but not sure how much.

I think there are at least 1 or 2 O'Brian's already but again doubt anywhere near the whole series has been published.

I asked the Folio Society, and they confirmed they have plans to publish additional volumes on the Aubrey-Maturin series after “Master and Commander”. They wouldn’t know if the whole series, though, but we can only hope.

I’ll also would like to see the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester.

And “The Catcher in the Rye” by Salinger

Paul Johnson's A History of the American People or perhaps his Intellectuals

>>176 (JamesIII) - yes, I am an Ackroyd fan. My favourite novels are Hawksmoor and English Music followed by Chatterton I guess. I also loved his Dickens and have most of the other non-fiction on the shelves, still to be read. I'd love a FS edition of my favourite novels I own, but as I have a hardback of Blake I won't by the FS version.

Any idea why—to my knowledge—FS never published anything by Bulwer Lytton? Is he so despised that nobody dares to re-publish him? I'm finishing his Rienzi, which I found very instructive from the historical standpoint; and I loved the melody of some sentences. Made me think to Richard II in places (but I may be completely wrong...)

I have a vague idea in my head that FS have done A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr - can anyone tell me whether that's true, or if I'm just confused?

yes I'm pretty sure they did. In fact I nearly bought it but decided in the end to keep my paperback because J.L.Carr himself sent it to me and autographed it. I first read an article about him in the Folio Magazine long long ago; I think it was written by Sue Bradbury. It mentioned that his accounts department was a shoebox so I felt I needed more contact with this delightful man. He sent me several of his tiny books "for reading during a tiring sermon". He is now in a better world.

How about something from "modern" Historical Fiction writters... Bernard Cornwell's Arthur Trilogy is pretty good.

Re #205 & #206: Yes, they certainly did about 10 years ago and it is a lovely edition. Delightful story and so is your, overthemoon. How I wish I had the temerity to write to some of my favorite authors to just let them know how much I enjoyed their work.

Re #204: Pepys, Folio has never done Bulwer-Lytton. (Except maybe in one of their short story or excerpt compendiums.) I believe this has less to do with his real merit as a writer than with the fact it has become fashionable to sneer at him as the author of the line which Schulz parodied in the "Peanuts" comic strip--"it was a dark and stormy night." This sort of snobbery directed at Victorian artists who dwelt on historic themes has also consigned artists like Alma-Tadema to being the butt of jokes at intellectual cocktail parties.

While I'm not saying as a historical novelist Bulwer-Lytton is on a par with Mika Waltari or Dmitry Merezhkovsky, I find The Last Days of Pompeii to be an absorbing read, and its main flaw--the author's trotting out the fruits of his research in sometimes improbable dialogue--I consider to be only a venial sin, and one for which most historical writers need to plead "guilty."

PS: If you want a fine copy of Last Days of Pompeii I highly recommend you take a look at this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Limited-Editions-Club-Last-Days-of-Pompeii-Very-Rare_W0QQite...

Wesleyan University Press published Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race in hardcover in 2005 and then in paperback.

Speaking, so to speak, of SF, I noticed that the FS website has a separate link for Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Ghost Stories under Fiction. I had not noticed it before and hope that it means they will be publishing more SF soon.

#209: Thanks for the tip concerning The Last Days of Pompei. Is it from this book that the phrase It was a dark and stormy night comes from? Anyway I could never understand what was wrong in it. I have to admit that some passages by Bulwer Lytton are well balanced and nice to read aloud—though I agree his pomposity (if ever this is an English word?) can get tedious at times.

But the postal rates to make this book be sent to France are really prohibitive! Besides, my experience with the copy of Rienzi I bought is rather bad. I bought it very cheap from eBay - a 1848 copy, I was the only bidder. It was written with such a small font on 2 columns per page that it will be a relief to come back to an FS edition of Dickens tonight. I'm bad for making bargains.

Rienzi's story is fantastic. I knew the name only from Wagner's opera. I wonder if a film was ever made.

The Shadow Of The Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Re #211: No, Pepys, the sentence is from Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford, a sort of prototype for Raffles: the Amateur Cracksman. I agree that the phrase doesn't deserve the scorn heaped upon it, especially when you take the whole first sentence in which it appears:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

I think as an opening "grabber," it works pretty well. The novel is meant to be an entertainment, after all, not an exercise in profundity.

Re. 203: Caroline, I loved both Hawksmoor and Chatterton. If I had to pick only one of them for a Folio treatment it would undoubtedly be Hawksmoor.

I always think of "It was a dark and stormy night" when I read Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveller - a fabulous surreal satire if ever there was one. I also think If on a winter's night a traveller is more than worthy of a Folio Society edition. It's one of my all time favorite books - after The Master and Margarita of course...

Er, I read this book by Calvino last year, and I didn't like it very much, though I agree the idea behind the book is exceptional. Perhaps it is the kind of book one has to read at least twice to fully enjoy it. But, Appa—if you allow me to call you so ;-) —your comments are always very persuasive. I remember having argued with you on Huysmans's Against the Grain, which I didn't like at first, and then I revised my opinion. Against the Grain, The Vatard Sisters, and other novels by Joris-Karl Huysmans would also be worthy of a Folio edition.

I think I remarked in another thread that Against the Grain was an absolute gift for an illustrator. It would be worthy of a very good artist. Perhaps we should start a special thread for fans of A rebours desirous of an FS edition where we could debate who should illustrate it and which scenes should have plates. The "mouth organ" and the jewelled tortoise should be assured of plates and - to honor Oscar Wilde - the binding would have to be yellow. The black feast would present a very special challenge to the artist - how would s/he depict a jet black negress wearing black velvet gloves and slippers serving black velvet cocktails? These decisions could not safely be left to FS staffers! :-)

I agree with appaloosaman that "It was a dark and stormy night" always brings to mind If on a winters night a Traveller, which I enjoyed immensely as it is so playful and spirited. I second the vote for this title.
I haven't enjoyed any of his other works as much though.

I prefer his other works, for instance The Baron in the Trees or Cosmicomics, for all the fantasy they receal. The way planets are formed by accretion of outer-space dust is a masterpiece of inventivity: to keep the planet clean, one has to get rid of this dust by compacting it into balls and throwing it back out of the planet's gravitational field—until one day the planet is eventually grown so huge that it is not possible any more...

Wahoo! The FS looks like they are publishing Midnight's Children in the spring. My daughter was just raving about it to me. Check out her review on LibraryThing. I've been meaning to read one of his books but haven't got around to it yet. Looks like the FS and my daughter are going to take care of that.

Yes, Midnight's Children, and three other Booker winners, according to the folio magazine I just received:
The Sea, The Sea
Schindler's Ark
Oscar and Lucinda

Those already published are:
Possession
Remains of the Day
The Siege of Krishnapur

Have I missed any? I've found something to collect as they come out...

I have a lot of books that I would still like to see Folio come out with:

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Vicar of Wakefield
House of the Seven Gables
Biography of Charlotte Bronte
Gothic Tales (Gaskell)
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Edith Wharton collection
Beowulf
Kilvert's Diary
Poetry of Christina Rossetti
Sketchbook by Washington Irving

for starters!!

The Vicar of Wakefield, Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, Beowulf, and Kilvert's Diary have all been produced by the Folio Society at various times in the past.

Yes, but the majority of them are about 30 years old and I would love a fresh copy! I would not mind them reprinting them. Same with the works of Wilde. I missed out on that, but now it is too late, unless I find a nice used set somewhere.

Girl With a Pearl Earring, Edith Wharton, Rossetti poetry, and the Gothic Tales I could all get behind :-)

Ditto Christina Rossetti--a most unjustly neglected poet!

A nice copy of Thoreau's Walden and Emerson's Essays would be a lovely edition to Folio!

"Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet. I can't even begin to imagine what Folio could do with such a book.

I completed my profile on the new FS website and put my wish list there. My suggestions were:

The Master and Margarita (of course)
The Tale of Genji
The Tale of the Heike
John Updike's Rabbit series
A single volume complete Inventions of Daedalus

Since the Society has shown an inclination to publish titles of interest to those with a scientific bent, I think they would do well to consider publishing a complete "Inventions of Daedalus". David Jones' articles for New Scientist, Nature and the Guardian delighted two generations of scientists with the "plauisible schemes" dreamed up by Daedalus and his development company Dreadco.

For those in this group unfamiliar with Daedalus, the column was intended to be both humorous and yet plausible. Jones had a remarkable in-depth grasp of a number of unrelated scientific fields. He was able to come up weekly with plausible inventions that made even those familiar with a particular field pause and wonder why it couldn't be done as Daedalus suggested. I really liked his idea for the generation of electricity by piezo-electric effects in earth faults - an earthquake powered power station. The reasons why it can't be done are as interesting as the idea itself.

Some of his ideas even anticipated later inventions. In one of his early columns (probably from the late 60's) he proposed noise cancelling headphones that would work by generating signals of the opposite frequency to those incoming - when the two were added together each cancelled the other. At the time Daedalus "invented" this, it was not feasible to implement the technology as solid state electronics were in their infancy. However, when Bose later attempted to patent the idea, the Patent Office refused their patent on the basic concept since it had been anticipated and described by Jones' Daedalus. Bose got a much narrower patent - how galling it must have been to be defeated by a 500 word weekly humorous column that was never meant to be taken too seriously!

Two double-volume sets

Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" AND "The Last Man", her other fine, and grossly neglected novel.

Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" AND complete poems.

Two one-work writers who shouldn't be!

Thomas Bewick's two-volume History of British Birds. 19th century editions in decent condition go for several hundred dollars at least. I'd love to get hold of the complete illustrated set, as Bewick published it. It's the book that the ten-year-old Jane Eyre was reading on the window seat, hiding behind the curtain, when her older cousin John Reed came into the room and started harassing her.

On the other hand, if an illustrated Folio Society edition proved to be expensive, into the range of a couple hundred dollars or more, it might be a better investment to put a few hundred dollars into a 19th century edition.

I'd like to see the Heimskringla to go with their fine editions of the Icelandic Saga's, Norse Legends, and early history.

James Herriot. I wouldn't mind seeing all his stories, though if I had to choose some to leave out it'd be the RAF stuff.

I'd like to see a couple more of Thackeray's works in the Folio list – certainly “Pendennis” and maybe “Barry Lyndon”.

It appears from “Folio 60” that the Society hasn't yet published Rabelais. I'd like to see this gap in the list closed, and I'd probably opt for the translation produced by J. M. Cohen in the 1950s.

From the twentieth-century fiction canon I would suggest Kingsley Amis's “Lucky Jim”, a few of Anthony Burgess's works (let's say “A Clockwork Orange” and the Enderby tetralogy), and some of Patrick Hamilton (e.g. “Hangover Square” and “The Slaves of Solitude”). My only fear is that, as with other modern works, I'd find my pleasure in the text somewhat marred by the illustrator.

It would be good to see Pope and Byron added to the poets' series. An edition of Samuel Butler's “Hudibras” would be welcome too, as would a bilingual edition of Juvenal, on the lines of their Catullus and Horace.

John Stow's “Survey of London”, a ward-by-ward, street-by-street and virtually house-by-house account of the City as it was in the 1590s, would be a nice addition to the history list. There ought to be plenty of engravings available to illustrate it.

Cruden's “Concordance” (possibly in a leather-bound edition) would be a useful addition to the religious category.

Is there actually a market for a biblical concordance in the 21st century? Digital versions of the Bible are easily had and a "find" command is a commonplace in any word processor or database application. I haven't seen a concordance for years but my memory is that they are hefty volumes and the laborious work that went into compiling them in the first place is replicated in seconds with modern technology. It would cost a lot to typeset and proof read such a publication so the FS price would be high. Are they so dearly loved by divines and the faithful that they would buy one rather than use something that is available at no cost? I'm not religiously inclined myself so I ask this in a spirit of genuine inquiry.

Yes, I would, if it would be on excellent paper and maybe divided into a few volumes rather than just one super hefty one. There are a lot of times books are just far more handy than looking up something on the web, not to mention easier to keep notes at your fingertips without the use of electricity. I just don't want it to be one of their super expensive limited edition books. As lovely as they are, they exceed my pocket money. I can think of quite a few people, both lay people and a few involved in both the Catholic and Anglican church that would appreciate such a volume(s). Hope that helps!

#234 Oh, Patrick Hamilton - good call. I've been idly thinking I should suggest Hangover Square to them for some time now. A Clockwork Orange likewise.

#234--"Yes" on Barry Lyndon and a definite "yes" on Butler's Hudibras. I can't believe Pope is so neglected--there doesn't seem to be a fine, illustrated edition of his work for decades.

I'd love to see a Folio treatment of something by Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Emperor would be great -- or it along with the other two books in his dictators trilogy in one volume.
I think his writing would work well with illustrations similar to the ones in Midnight's Children instead of photos because it is so impressionistic.

+1 on Kapuscinski also. I've been hoovering up everything I see by him since reading Travels With Herodotus a couple of years ago.

I'd quite like to see the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams as a folio edition. I think they may be considering this as it was in a questionnaire I filled out on new editions members would like to see.

239 & 240

I am a Kapuscinski fan too ! However the topics of his books and the way they were written does not really fit in a luxe edition. Foio could maybe add his "travels" as a companion to Herodotus ....

Isaiah Berlin - eruditon surely can never go out of fashion.

Paul Bowles:

Let it Come Down
The Spider's House
The Sheltering Sky

Yes Bowles by all means.

And what of other eccentric travellers like Robert Byron and Nicolas Bouvier?

Peret...?

Of all the possible travel books, I think a Folio edition of Thomas Coryate's "Crudities" would be the most welcome for me, even if it had to be considerably abridged. Eccentric though he was, his accounts of Venice and other places are still quoted, and a representative selection from his work would be a delight, I'm sure.

>245:

FS has already done The Road to Oxiana; I'd love an edition of The Station to go with it. Also, more Patrick Leigh Fermor!

I have yet to see any Jose Saramago or Haruki Murakami from FS. Still waiting.

Butler's Lives of the Saints

I know he no longer has a literary reputation of much substance, but any takers for Angus Wilson?

I'd love to have anything (or, preferably, everything) by Ivan Bunin, though I admit I'd settle for an Everyman's Library version; the same goes for everything by Maxim Gorky. I hate how little choice in translation there is, particularly with Gorky's plays... I had to settle for paperback, too, and the paper was brownish upon arrival; not the most encouraging of signs. Love the plays I've read, though.

Anyone here know of good editions? I'm afraid I'm not the most knowledgeable book fanatic; less than four years of experience, tragically.

I would like to see a nice copy of Candide and some Alexander Pope

Re #251: Penguin did a nice edition of Gorky's three autobiographical works, which I find more interesting than the dramas.

Incidentally, there is a great Russian film trilogy based on these works and directed by Mark Donskoy that will well repay watching.

Perhaps I'm out on a limb here but... Das Kapital, anyone?

>253 - I will probably share that opinion once I get around to reading them. Thanks!

I wish they'd reissue the lovely looking Narnia set they published several years ago - it is one of my bigger regrets not buying it at the time, and I much prefer buying new Folio books rather that getting them on the secondhand market.

I came across a reference to George Saintsbury in another FS Devotees' thread, and I think his "Notes on a Cellar Book" would be a welcome addition to the Society's food and drink books. I read it decades ago in a borrowed Penguin paperback, and I'd certainly buy it if Folio were to publish it. I don't know quite how I'd like to see it illustrated, but the binding would obviously have to be in burgundy.

The Snow Leopard - Peter Matthiessen

>257 - I second that recommendation. I hope the Molio Society is watching.

I just started a new thread in which we can address the Mole directly. Why not?

>260 - Why not indeed.

Perhaps FS should do an edition of T S Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - it would certainly offer the illustrator a lot of fun. We could dream of Ronald Searle or Gerald Scarfe illustrations.

>262 - That would be a lovely one.

I'm considering joining the Folio society for the first time. I just haven't got the free cash for the 4 purchases at the minute... I can see it becoming a drain on my already struggling financial situation!

I e-mailed them and asked how likely it is that Watership Down and The Making of the English Working Class would be added soon and they replied that neither are on their publishing schedule. I'd read on here that they may be so I'm quite upset :(

I'm still a bit confused about the whole thing though. Do they regularly change their Joining Offers? The choice at the minute is already a great one and I'd struggle to choose, but obviously I'd like to see what else they may offer, if they do change those offers.

Well, I'm waiting for more Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. Speaking of fairy, I would love to see:

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

>265

Ooh, Faerie Queene. That would be a must-have for me.

>265,266 - It would be a must-have for me, depending on the price. ;-) I could just go for the Easton Press edition.

Does anyone know if FS has ever published "The Four Feathers"? I happen to love that book and also the Alexander Korda 1930,s movie.

The Faerie Queen is crying out for FS Limited Edition treatment. The spelling MUST be original, however!

Irieisa, please pass this on to your Society masters...

>268 - Four Cornish novels, 4.50 from Paddington, Four mysteries, Four Quartets, Fourth Crusade, Four themes - but sadly, the index of Folio 60 does not include "The Four Feathers".

Something to look forward to, anyhow. The bittersweet agony of Folio membership would be taken away at a stroke if they published everything.

>269 - I would if they were my masters. Should I send a suggestion email, the way non-moles have to? ;-)

>270 - Seems like a metaphor for the life (i.e. the joy of life would be taken away if you accomplished everything you wanted, since you'd no longer have any desires; all sheer conjecture, of course, as no one has ever achieved such a state. Besides, if it weren't enjoyable, then you'd wish things could be like they used to, which would be a desire. Huzzah!).

With the right illustrator, FS could do a killer job with Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (not H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man).

Os.

BTW - does anyone know what it means when an author touchstone shows up red when writing/editing a post?

Does anyone else fancy the complete or semi-complete books of Bill Bryson? Or is that just me?

>273 - I haven't read anything by Bill Bryson, but reading about him on Wikipedia, I'm thinking that's a rather nice idea.

#274 - I highly recommend him! He's one of the few authors who can actually make me laugh out loud, and no-one seems to combine funny and fascinating quite as well as he does.
I'm interested in science at a purely amateur level and find it difficult to get on with science books in general, but his A Short History of Nearly Everything was astonishing in how much complexity I managed to grasp. A true testimonial to the author, I assure you!
I'm currently reading Down Under and loving it. My only gripe is the size of the print and I keep daydreaming about a nice big folio type with beautiful binding and no stupid dust jacket to get in my way...

>275 - Recommendation noted with pleasure!

I like math and science in theory, but am especially terrible with the latter. Thus, I bought Folio's Feynman book. I hope it hurries up and arrives; this is the longest it has taken me yet to receive an order from FS, and I'm all antsy!

275: I always take the dust jacket off a book I'm reading. (In fact, I leave it on the bookshelf, sort of looking like a book.) I just hate dealing with it while reading.

Re #268: I have a very old, non-Folio edition of Four Feathers and think it would be a good Folio volume, but have to confess I think the book isn't as good as the Korda film--which is a masterpiece of its kind.

Another interesting book which was made into a far better movie is Lives of a Bengal Lancer, which, given the Society's fascination with the Raj, seems like it should have been given the Folio treatment.

>273 - I would certainly love to see more volumes by Bill Bryson published by FS. He is absolutely brilliant! Notes from a Small Island made me laugh until I cried.

One book is missing in the Folio collection : Life and opinion of Tomcat Murr, by ETA Hoffman. Folio could make something real nice out of that !

I'm suggesting 2 works by John Cowper Powys - A Glastonbury Romance and Weymouth Sands. Due to the length of both, I suspect that they would not be cheap.

I would love to see an edition of Voltaire's "Princess of Babylon". I have the Nonesuch Press Edition with the Lowinsky Illustrations inside and just love it.

Eta: That I have one already doesn't mean that I have no use for a Folio Edition :P

I don't have Folio 60 so I have been wondering if FS ever published Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. I would love to have an FS copy of this remarkable novel.

#283 - I've just had a quick look in Folio 60 and can find no mention at all of Theodore Dreiser or An American Tragedy.
Perhaps it could be something to look forward to...?

>>258 - I agree, The Snow Leopard would be a wonderful additon. Reminds me to take it off my shelf and re-read it.

>281 - Yes, I second that. Powys has long been a favourite of mine and, by coincidence, those are the two Powys novels I've read most recently. A Glastonbury Romance, especially, is very powerful. His novels encompass a kaleidoscope of characters whose lives are all touched in subtle ways by the place they inhabit. The Glastonbury book was so accurate in its description of the social make-up of the town that a prominent real-life citizen sued the publishers for defamation. They were so jumpy after that that they refused to publish Weymouth Sands unless Powys changed all the place-names in the book so that the place could not be identified - a ridiculous thing, artistically, because, for Powys, place is everything. The book came out in this mutilated form in Britain (in the 1930s), under an eponymous title, Jobber Skald, and was not published in its original form until 1962. Reading the proper version, it's hard to imagine that Powys wrote it in America, where he had lectured for many years, and so far away from the place it so vividly depicts.

#286 - Thank you for your informative post in support of the 2 Powys books. I had a copy of the 1935 Bodley Head edition of Jobber Skald in the late sixties, but unfortunately had to sell it a few years later ( for the usual reasons )

Re #283: Did you ever see the LEC's version of An American Tragedy (or the Heritage reprint) with the illustrations by Reginald Marsh? It is one of their best, and Marsh was the ideal artist to illustrate the story although I wish he would have done full color illustrations in the manner of his great social realist paintings--

http://eeweems.com/reginald_marsh/artwork.html

Still, the sketches are great and there are LOTS of them, and they recall his famous illustrations for Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy. The books are easily available from used books dealers and at comparatively reasonable prices--even the LEC version--due to the unhappy fact Marsh died before he could sign the 1500 copies; otherwise it would be highly sought after by the autograph hounds.

New to this board - I've been a Folio member since 1986 (!!) and have just been around the house and counted 215 volumes. I just ordered three more in the Summer Sale, and would gladly buy more, including:

- The Book of Ebenezer lePage, by G.B. Edwards. Please, Folio, publish this book - it's wonderful.
- Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, by Heda Margolius Kovaly. The first paragraph of this book captured me like no other ever has.
- Daniel Boorstin's three-volume history The Americans
- A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
- Two Years Before the Mast, by R. H. Dana
- Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy
- The Tartar Steppe, by Dino Buzzati. A magnificent, tremendous, fantastic book. You might think I liked it....
- Ali and Nino, by Kurban Said
- Fernand Braudel's three-volume Civilization & Capitalism, 15th - 18th Century

Along with many others already nominated (I enthusiatically second the suggestion of Life: A User's Manual).

While we're mentioning Daniel Boorstin, how about The Discoverers, The Creators, and (less interesting to me, but just to complete the set) The Seekers?

>287 - I have the 1935 Jobber Skald, which I picked up in Dorchester ten years ago. It's fascinating to compare the two texts to see how descriptions of such prominent features as, for example, the Jubilee Clock on Weymouth seafront and the great iron age fortress of Maiden Castle have been transmuted. Quite bizarre!

A thread elsewhere - and our own Irieisa - just made me think of something else I'd love Folio to do: the complete children's novels of Roald Dahl. Or at least Matilda and The Vicar of Nibbleswicke.

beatlemoon - I believe they already have done! 'The Best of Roald Dahl' consisting of The BFG, Matilda, The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Glass Elevator. All published in 2002, so I'm all for a reprint!

Here's a link to an ebay auction: http://tinyurl.com/lsue54

>293

Oh man, I missed it! Thanks for the link!

But, you know, that's still not the complete works - I'm all for a reprint/first run of everything! :-)

>292,293,294 - That's a great idea! A reprint would be nice. ;-)

My wish list agrees with a lot of what people have already said plus a few new ones:
Some more Dostoeysky: Idiot, Possesed, Short Stories,etc.
Pushkin is Russian great author but we have little from him
Kafka -The Castle
T.S.Eliot Poems. Sue B. told me a few years ago that the Eliot Estate were opposed to a FS edition of his works at that time
Hugo said he wrote a novel for the 3 great influences on Man: Religion, Society, and Nature. We have Notre Dame for Religion, Les Misérables for Society, and now we need Toilers of the Sea for Nature. Colors: Blue for N. Dame, Red for Les
M. and now Green for Toilers
Some Zola, especially Germinal, Bête Humaine,
Débâcle,etc.
Rabelais - Gargantua ...
We've had History of India, China, Arabs, Africa. Now we should have a History of Japan which plays such an important role in the world today
Baum Wizard of Oz
For philosophy we need Kant's Critique, Hegel's Philosophy of History, Hobbes Leviathan and especially Locke, upon whose work our political system is based
Toynbee Study of History in the Sommerville abridgement
Spengler - Decline of the West
More of Boswell's travels, not just his London Journal
More H. James. How about a run of his novels?
For poets how about Burns, Browning, or Byron?
Herman Hesse -any of his works
Frazer's Golden Bough
Campbell's 4 volumes on Myth
We've had Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, what about the companion volume Conquest of Peru?
Undset's Kristen Lavrensdatter series
Mann's Joseph and His Brothers

Did I ever mention that I'd like to see all the books written by Emily Carr - Klee Wyck, the Book of Small, and all the others.
(removed touchstone on BofS because it brought up the wrong book and author entirely)

I think that The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden is perfect for the FS treatment. The beautiful illustrations that adorn every page look fantastic in the facsimile edition of the 1906 book published in 1985 . It is an amazing book and well worth a look for those who have not seen it before.

John

Hey, did the FS ever release a Complete Works of Shakespeare with the First Folio text? I'm not interested in a facsimile of the First Folio, I actually want a nice cleaned-up edition, but with the First Folio text, where you know Moon is spelled Moone etc. I know Easton Press released such an edition, but you had to purchase EACH play separately... those dastards!

-astropi

All affordable (ie not Limited Eds) editions of.....

# Shannara Trilogy
# Waverley Novels
# Nigel Tranter's Historical Novels
# Les Miserables & The Hunchback of Notre Dame
# Clarissa
# Poor Fellow My Country
# War and Peace
# Atlas Shrugged
# Belgariad Novels

There is so much that I would like to see, but for starters -

Fraser's Golden Bough (complete not abridged).
George McDonald Fraser's Flashman novels.
Complete set of William Faulkner.
William Golding - To the Ends of the Earth trilogy.

I think I mentioned some before--I recall that Django and I both would love to see Folio do Firbank--but here are a few more:

The late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello. A man accidentally taken for dead grabs the opportunity to run away from home; has adventures, comments on life with gentle irony.

The confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo. In turn-of-the-century Trieste, Zeno the unfaithful neurotic undergoes this newfangled medical treatment, "psychoanalysis", supposedly in order to get rid of a smoking habit; jokes, chats a lot.

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. A little girl of ten has superhuman strength, tons of money, lives alone, does not go to school. My #1 hero of all time.

We by Evgeny Zamyatin. A beautiful novel about a future society where everyone is called by a number, lives in glass apartments, and makes love with assigned partners. Some people remember the "old times", though, and others are unexpectedly upset by old, "animal" emotions, such as love. Gorgeous.

Nice list, Lola. I'm intrigued by "We." I enjoy speculative fiction a lot.

The Late Matthew Pascal--yes! Thank you for suggesting this--a wonderful story that needs to be better appreciated. (There was a wonderful silent film version by Marcel L'Herbier.)

#303

Oh, you should definitely get it then, maisonvivante. I think in Anglo-world, it's famous primarily as the novel that inspired Huxley, but Zamyatin's intensely interesting in his own right, and a much better writer, IMO. A major literary figure of Russian modernism (a naval engineer by profession, partly educated in England, where HE was inspired to try his hand at this "science-fiction" thing by the example of Wells.)

#304

Django, I adore silent cinema and have not seen the silent Mattia--a must for me. It's one of my favourite books. I hope they didn't over-sentimentalise it, the book is wicked funny.

I second the suggestion for We, by Zamyatin. I just read it a few months ago, and it was quite worthwhile. I'd love to see the illustrations for it!

Pippi Longstocking, however, would be a pass.

I would like to suggest The White Goddess by Robert Graves. That could be a realy sumptious volume !!!

What about Trainspotting and Porno by Irvine Welsh?

Now those would be illustrations to behold :-)

Would also love to see

# The Social Contract by JJ Rousseau

Now that FS are contemplating publishing a version of Beowulf which I hope is Heaneys translation, it's probably about time that they considered publishing Thomas Kinsellas translation of the Tain Bo Cuailnge. The original The Tain had wonderful illustrations by Louis le Brocquy. This epic of Irish folklore would make a wonderful addition to the myths series.
John

The Tain would be great, as well as Heaney's translation of Sweeney Astray.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a novel I'd love FS to do.

Agree re the Faulkner, currently re-reading As I lay dying and have Absolam, Absolam in the TBR soon pile.

LolaW - I haven't read any of your list, but all sound enticing.

I would love to see:

The Graveyar Book
American Gods
Revolutionary Road

It is probably a bit modern but I'd love to see Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - what they could do with illustrations would fascinate me. And the Rabbit series by Updike I would love to see as well as the completion of the Fairy series. But I have to say most of all I like the surprises that Folio can offer - books I've never heard of or would never consider. And I'd love some more Wodehouse...

314> Cloud Atlas would be great, but I am still holding out for The Master and Margarita and the collected works of Haruki Murakami starting with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I can imagine some remarkable illustrations for his works.

312: Easton Press had a beautiful edition of 451! As well as the Martian Chronicles :) I think if you subscribe to their Sci-Fi collection (which you don't have to, you can order specific titles if you want) you get an autographed copy of 451 (with certificate of authenticity, etc)...

cheers,

-astropi

I'd like to see a series of Zola. I believe they published Nana and Therese Raquin years ago but never Germinal (my favourite).

The Master and Margarita
The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross)
The Elementary Particles

In browsing through Folio 60 recently, I was surprised to learn that FS has never published any Italo Calvino. I would enjoy seeing Calvino in FS editions, particularly Our Ancestors trilogy and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

#320 - I second that. I'd also love to see Calvino's The Baron in the Trees.

Moi aussi - I really would like a FS If on a Winter's Night a Traveler - a real literary jeu d'esprit.

ooh, yes to Calvino. As well as those mentioned I love 'Invisible Cities'.

And another vote for Calvino...

I agree - I would love some Calvino, primarily -

If on a Winters Night
Our Ancestors trilogy
Invisible Cities
Fantastic Tales (Calvino's wonderful anthology of the strange tale)
Italian Folk Tales

Agree re Calvino. I have only read The Baron in the Trees but am looking out for more.

Nearly repeated my vote for If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, which I spoke up for back at #218!
Can I instead suggest a couple of other titles:
The Rings of Saturn - I had not read anything as otherworldly as this before. Magnificent if you are in the right mood.
The Blue Flower - a masterpiece of 'less is more'.

As a Yank, I'd love to see The Federalist Papers paired with the Anti-Federalists.

Anglophone Calvino fans might care to know that Penguin recently published The Complete Cosmicomics in hardback. ISBN 9781846141652.

Angel in the Whirlwind is simply the best book on the Revolutionary War (or whatever you people call it over there) ever written.

I haven't read "Angel in the Whirlwind", but so far the best I've read was John Ferling's "A Leap in the Dark".

Re #330 & #331: It is fiction rather than history, but have either of you read James Boyd's novel Drums? It would make a great Folio edition, especially if they meticulously reproduced N. C. Wyeth's famous illustrations.

333: Yes, I'd love to see The Moral Animal, as my copy is a paperback and I thought it was a great book.

I would love to see a Folio edition of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde to go with my FS Jane Eyre.

>335

And how about Wide Sargasso Sea?

>336 - Excellent idea!

>336 there is one already!

>338 Really? Now or before?

Folio published a nice edition about 10 years ago (I think) with serviceable black and white illustrations (which seemed wrong to me--despite the neo-Gothic character of the story, I would have preferred color illustrations to suggest the lurid quality of the tropical setting).

>340

Yes. My reading manifested in imagery of hot sticky gaudiness.

My copy is dated 1993, there's a picture of it on my shelf.

Posting this morning on snother thread reminded me of another book which would be good as a Folio - "Lanark" by Alisdair Gray. But it should have Grays own incredible frontispiece for each of the books.

I just thought of one I'd love to see. It's not in the Folio 60, so I don't think they've done it. I can see the illustrations in my head:

Papillon

I thought of something yesterday, while driving home in the rain - Beverly Cleary's Ramona books. I was driving past a muddy field and was hit with a memory of Ramona's red galoshes getting stuck in the mud. And that thought was immediately followed by how wonderful it would be to have gorgeously bound versions of those books with the original illustrations.

I'm currently reading William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain and I am now craving his books in Folio editions. They're perfect candidates for a beautiful Folio treatment!

How about Gould's Book of Fish? I loved that book along with the illustrations. Which reminds me, I have also come across a book recently which is a barn-burner of a story. I can only imagine the illustrations that would go with it. It was originally published in Catalan and recently translated and is entitled Pandora in the Congo. In a review of the book in The Guardian they quote "it melds the ironies of Christopher Hope's Darkest England with the shape-shifting brio of Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish into that realm of hyperbolic fabulation where Umberto Eco has long made safari." Any takers?

Gould's Book of Fish, yes please (sharkskin binding?). I haven't heard of the others.

348>Ooooo...yes sharkskin binding, although I may have to see what that might look like first. I don't believe I have ever seen a sharksking binding...plenty of snakeskin, but not sharkskin.

>347, 348

I'm rather happy with the edition I have. The publisher did a fine job of working with the author on the design (different colors of type in different chapters, beautiful images of fish, and marbled eps that look like shimmering water). I don't know if subsequent editions did as well.

However, perhaps given the narrator's situation, a burlap cover might be appropriate (and easier on the sharks).

Os.

Pandora in the Congo sounds very interesting - I just read the few reviews on Amazon, and put it on my wish list. Your mention that it was translated from Catalan made me think of another book translated from that language - Tirant lo Blanc, by Joanot Martorell and Marti Joan de Galba.

In Don Quixote, when Alonzo Quijana's books are being burned for deluding him into thinking himself a knight errant, one was spared from the fire because it was said to embody all that was good. That book was Tirant lo Blanc (called Tirant the White in my copy of Don Quixote). I have a copy of it, published by Schocken Books in 1984. It would make an absolutely wonderful Folio choice.

Well, I still want these and added some more....

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Vicar of Wakefield
House of the Seven Gables
Biography of Charlotte Bronte
Gothic Tales (Gaskell)
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Edith Wharton collection
Beowulf
Kilvert's Diary
Poetry of Christina Rossetti
Sketchbook by Washington Irving
Emerson's Essays (complete)
Blithedale Romance (Hawthorne)
Out of Africa
Stardust~Neil Gaiman
The Odd Women~Gissing
New Grub Street~Gissing
Rainbow Fairy Tale books by Lang...time for more!

>352

Lady, we have similar tastes - I'll second your Fairy books, Rossetti, Emerson, Wharton, Gaskell, Gaiman, and Chevalier, and then add the following:

Year of Magical Thinking
more CS Lewis, esp. A Grief Observed
Little House on the Prairie (full set)
Gone With the Wind
Brave New World (new edition - last done in the early 70's, I believe; time for a new one)
The Giver
The Handmaid's Tale (not sure if they've done it - not in the Folio 60, anyway)

And I'll second Little House on the Prairie, The Handmaid's Tale (which I haven't read, but the synopsis of the film version sounds very intriguing), GWTW, an unjustly underrated masterpiece, and Brave New World--the earlier Folio version I have to characterize as one of their outright failures.

The latter two books I would probably not buy, as I have copies of both in editions I like, but I think the belong in the canon.

I third Little House books, I would also love to see some of the sequels of Anne of Green Gables done, all 8 in a set would make my heart sing. The Wizard of Oz, Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma, Dorothy and the Wizard et al. would be a fantastic series as well but a huge undertaking. If the Rainbow Fairy books are any indication of how series are handled, I would rather it not be started than not completed. Nothing irks me more than having half a series of books, I think that has something to do with having (albeit a small tinge) OCD.

>352 - "Out Of Africa" -- yes! Have they really never done this?

Out of Africa, done in 1980
Kilvert's Diary 1977 (Journal of a Country Curate, selections from the diary of Francis Kilvert)
Vicar of wakefield 1952 and redesigned 1971
Beowulf 1973 amd 1986

I'd also like to see some Margaret Atwood. Tin Drum by Guenter Grass would be great too. In a world literature vein, I think Italo Calvino is an absolute must. And I know Hugo Chavez gave him a huge boost, but I find some of the books by Eduardo Galeano absolutely fascinating - the Memoria del Fuego trilogy was wonderfully done (although I'm still ploughing through the Spanish). I think I'd also appreciate some more Camus (I hesitate only because I've read him in French - but I'm losing my patience for ploughing through books in foreign languages).

>357 - "Out of Africa, done in 1980"

Does anyone have this? I notice that the cover is illustrated with a photograph -- were the interior illustrations also photographs?

I don't have it, but trusty Folio 60 says: linocuts by Peter Pendrey, endleaves with map in dark green. In addition to the frontispiece there are 34 smaller cuts, often used as headpieces.
Redesigned version in 1986. The first edition has a brown cover with brown lithograph of a contemporary photograph, and the second a yellow cloth cover printed in brown with an enlargement of the headpiece from page 138.
The linocut shown in Folio 60 is of a cameleon (I think) with its tail twisted around the branch of a tree.

>360 - Thanks!

I would also like some more 19th and 18th century literature, in particular -

Silas Marner and Daniel Deronda
Some Tobias Smollett
Jonathan Wild by Henry Fielding
Pamela
A collection of Voltaire, esp. Candide.
Rameaus Nephew by Diderot
Montisquieu's Persian Letters
As well as the return of Trollope to Folio - particularly, The Way We Live Now and He Knew He was Right.

351> You've really got me interested in Tirant lo Blanc. I am going to have to take a look.

Has anyone read any of Roberto Bolano's works, particularly The Savage Detectives and/or 2666? They are both remarkable works of fiction, partly autobiographical, and a bit difficult to wade through, but I am not sure they would be the type of works that FS would publish.

I assume that the Folio edition of Prescott's "History Of the Conquest Of Mexico" was abridged -- it's about 300 pages shorter than other editions I've seen. Anyone know for sure?

#364

I read (and greatly admired) both, but I can't imagine, nor would I care particularly to have Folio "do" them--the books are postmodernist experiments rife with sex and profanity and I don't see that meshing with Folio's bourgeois, mostly stodgy, middle-of-the-road programme and slightly kitschy aesthetics at all.

365 > You know it would be nice if FS would indicate abridged volumes. Even Folio 60 provides no indication of whether Prescott's History is abridged. I have not seen the FS version, but I have a complete set of Prescott's works from the Fred DeFau & Co. Publishers in NY which consists of two volumes covering The Conquest of Mexico. These two volumes contain over a 1000 pages with extensive footnotes. I have always been a bit suspicious of the accuracy of this particular collection as no publication dates are provided in any of the volumes. Unfortunately I have not had the time to check these various volumes against other editions.

>365 - My copy of "The Conquest of Mexico" says that the "abundant" notes have beeen edited, with many deleted. The deleted ones are "straightforward references to source material not readily available to the general reader, and many are extracts from original documents which appear, more or less verbatim, in the text". There is no mention that I found of any editing of the main body of the work. Could the notes have been so abundant as to make the difference you note?

>368 - "Could the notes have been so abundant as to make the difference you note?"

They are certainly abundant -- but enough to account for 300 pages of text? I don't know . . .

As with Gibbon, I'd certainly like to have them in my primary copy of the work.

Though I have never read it, I would like an FS edition of Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the tomcat Murr.

Or a collection of Hoffmann's tales! (Have they done any?) Now that would lend itself to some stunningly colourful illustrations.

> 371

I also would like to see a collection of Hoffman's tales. At present I have a nice collection of his tales published by UK small press publisher, Tartarus.

The illustrations in my 1942 edition from the Deutschebuch Gemeinschaft are excellent black and white ink sketches--but Hoffmann really screams for full Technicolor/Panavision treatment.

My LEC Hoffman has wonderful black and white lithos by Hugo Steiner-Prag, that have become so identified in my mind with the texts that it is hard for me to imagine color illustrations, but great illustrators are always able to surprise me with their insights.

The Arabian Nightmare

The Westing Game

The Mousehole Cat

Aura (how many 2nd person narration books does FS have?)

As a Canadian I would add the the Battle Cry of Freedom ( a history of the American Civil War) by James McPhearson as a Folio book. No doubt if I put my mind to it I can find many other books to add, so I might submit another posting.

I would like to see three of Nicholas Basbanes works in FS editions. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed A Gentle Madness and Patience and Fortitude, but I have yet to read Editions and Impressions

Basbane would be perfect for the Folio treatment. Books celebrating books in fine editions ... what could be more perfect?

I second the motion of having Nicholas Basbanes works(having read and enjoyed them all) in FS editions. I would further add that having George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series as a set be introduced into the FS catalogue.

Here, here as to Flashman--when I filled out the Folio survey I put that on the top of my list.

I love those old, lurid, politically incorrect flashman covers. I don't think FS could win trying to do artwork for Flashy.

> 381

I agree with petertemplar. The paperback covers are great fun for Flashman (see my favourite below). I would love to see the series in Folio but the covers are bound to be more restrained.

http://maxzook.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/flashman.jpg

I have just finished reading Pandora in the Congo...for the second time. The first time, about a month ago, I was astonished. The second time, this past week, I was just flabbergasted. This book reads like Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.Rider Haggard and Joseph Conrad rolled into one literary gem. It's a page-turner and it surprised me at almost every turn of the page. Few books do that. I would like to nominate this book as an upcoming Folio volume. I'd like to keep it on my shelf for many years to come.

> 383 - I've requested it from the library. I hope that I find it as "flabbergasting" (a goodly word) as you do. A recommendation such as that should not go ignored - I'll let you know what I think of it.

384> Enjoy!

I haven't read all 385 posts, so please forgive any redundancies. My votes are:

Finnegan's Wake, Joyce
Life of Johnson, Boswell
Mein Kampf, Hitler
Lolita, Nabakov
Tao Te Ching, Tzu
1984, Orwell

I will def. second Lolita.

Yes, I'm surprised to learn that the FS has never published an edition of Lolita. What god would let that happen...?

>386 - Absolutely want FS to do Finnegans Wake. Already have a nice edition of Lolita, so I'm happy. (I doubt they would do Mein Kampf.)

You're right to suggest that MK might be too controversial, although it does proffer some fascinating historical context.

I have an Easton Press edition of MK, so perhaps it's not as taboo as one might initially surmise...

As for Finnegan's Wake, I would be awfully excited if it made it to press. In fact, I'd love to see an entire Joyce series...limited edition, perhaps?

I've just started reading Inkheart which would be superb in a FS edition. Particularly bound in pale green linen ....

>390 - I hope not on the LE part - I would never be able to get them!

EP publishes a lot, though. Somehow it would seem like less of an issue if EP published something like Mein Kampf than if FS did.

>386 - They've done 1984 - I just looked, and found it in the 2008 prospectus.

I have a Life of Johnson, originally published in 1968 and reissued in 1990. It might well be due for another reissue, or maybe even a new edition.

Mein Kampf...... well, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that. My brother studied philosophy (if you ever meet him, DON'T start him talking about it), and he had to buy a copy. He said that he had to apologize to everyone in the store about buying it. They all thought he should be reported to the thought police (1984, you see).

Lolita, if properly illustrated, would be a slam dunk purchase for me. Since I try to actually read all of my Folio purchases, I doubt I would buy Finnegan's Wake. I thought Ulysses was impossible.

They've never done Lao Tzu?

I started reading Mein Kampf in German some time ago, but I never made it through. So much compressed crap. I feel sorry for the time I wasted on it.

>393

I also studied Philosophy at Uni (and keep my hand in) and Sirah, I resent your implications ;-)

So, why would anyone want to read Mein Kampf? Unless you were doing research of course. Otherwise, I heard it's mostly poorly written racist drivel. I see no reason whatsoever for the FS to publish this! If they did, I certainly would not purchase it, and I'm somewhat surprised Easton Press published it.

Lolita however, would be great...
Not as great as the Green Fairy book though, which I guess is NOT coming out this year?

cheers,

-astropi

People might want to read Mein Kampf because it was written by a (horrible) man who had a hand in shaping the world we live in.

It's history. Learning about Hitler's psychology is a worthwhile goal (if for no other reason than to recognize it when you see it).

How about the Modern Library titles
"The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietsche",
and "The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill".
Difficult to find these in hardcover now.

PS, I know I spelled Nietzche wrong.

I can understand why one might gravitate toward the puritanical with regard to book choices. But one man's diabolical dictator (Mein Kampf) is another man's murderous pedophile (Lolita).

I happen to find both fascinating for very different reasons.

I read Mein Kampf in German for a course in college. I cannot remember which edition, but it was poorly written, even in German. As I recall, it consisted largely of vituperative diatribes and hateful streams of consciousness. Any historical references in the book tended to be pure nonsense. The book does reflect the mind of Hitler...even his madness at times. Quite frankly I am not sure that I would read it again even in an FS edition.

>393

Shows you how little I know about the FS cannon. I'm embarrassed to say that I've just discovered them last week.

Oh, well; better late than never...

And the real reason Folio won't publish Mein Kampf - it wouldn't sell.

I don't know about that. One of the most expensive books in the Easton Press publications is Mein Kamph and it is highly collectible. I think that its historical value alone makes it important, and worthy of publication, and I think the Easton price reflects peoples' recognition of its "worthiness" of a finer edition.

I don't know about that. One of the most expensive books in the Easton Press publications is Mein Kamph and it is highly collectible. I think that its historical value alone makes it important, and worthy of publication, and I think the Easton price reflects peoples' recognition of its "worthiness" of a finer edition.

The FS seems to have multitude of obscure, niche-specific titles that may have less popular appeal than Hitler's treatise. I'm not convinced that it would sell any fewer copies than some of the other FS titles that are in inventory today.

With regard to it being poorly written, I'm not sure that it matters. (No disrespect intended.)

It's a historical document. It is what it is.

Along with books already mentioned (Lolita, Hitchhiker's guide, Watership Down), I'd really like to see:

High Fidelity
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Essays of E.B. White
Middlesex
Any of James Herriot's animal books set BEFORE he was in the RAF.

I would like Collapse to go with Guns, Germs and Steel.

I would like to throw my votes for Watership Down, Black Beauty, The Princess Bride, Lolita, The Handmaiden's Tale, and The Last Unicorn.

I'd love to see Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe, LaCamera) and Lolita, and also Mein Kampf.

On the latter, it's really too easy to dismiss it as drivel, and when I browsed long sections of it one afternoon in a bookshop (without actually buying it) I was actually quite impressed on one level - for example, it surprised me to read his apparently naked account of the development of his anti-semitism in which he claimed to have been originally an ardent defender of Jews (remember he was a wannabe artist, a broadsheet rather than tabloid reader, a pseudo intellectual when a bum, so "siding" with Jews against middle-class prejudice fitted the pattern perfectly) - his paranoid suspicions, fears, and hatreds as they emerged are fascinatingly catalogued, reminiscent of a Freudian case history (I think, for example, he actually became physically unwell around the time of his reversal, so intense was the psychic crisis). Anyway, I didn't mean to turn this into a review, but the book, as far as I could make out, is more than just a racist rant, and has value both to historians and psychologists, I would suggest.

Another book in this vein I'd like to read and also own for historical/archival value is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Unlike MK, where commercial publishers have nervously put it out with fat, damning introductions (for the avoidance of doubt!), the only publishers of the Protocols I could find when I looked a couple of years ago were, shall we say, "ideological" - I couldn't countenance funding such groups and let the thing drop. Folio?

409: Of course, some mid-east countries sell the Protocols as if it's a history book, but you have to read Arabic.

I've looked around for them myself, but not very seriously. Not seriously, for example, to have an FBI file on me yet!

I'm always interested in how my enemies think. (I don't have many, but the people who propagate that stuff are certainly in that category.)

I would love to see Literary Landscapes of the British Isles A narrative Atlas by David Daiches and John Flower

>410

Yes, and both the Protocols and Mein Kampf still sell well in Egypt - during the '67 war Egyptian soldiers were equipped with a copy of the latter as standard issue!

Here's a topical article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/5978047/German-Jews-bac...

Interesting article; thanks for posting.

Indeed, copyright restrictions haven't been touched upon in this lengthy, often fervent thread. I'd imagine that the FS would have published Lolita years ago if it could get its hands on a favorable rights agreement.

The public domain stuff is all easy fodder for a book publisher. Everything else, however, is subject to business as usual.

The copyright restrictions seem to apply in this case to the original untranslated text, or at least to the German region, rather than to Mein Kampf itself worldwide. Certainly legitimate translated versions have been published outside Germany, so this issue is no barrier to an FS version. I had always thought that there was a specific ban on the text within Germany, as there is on Nazi-symbolism and holocaust denial.

Another work to think about is The Hundred Years War, by Jonathan Sumption, There are three volumes (and maybe they should become five volumes) but considering how central this event is to the identity of England and France I would submit this would be a worthy entry.

A classic work of travel writing I'd like to see Folioised is Eothen by Alexander William Kinglake, and perhaps some Freya Stark as well.

I read Eothen a year or so ago and whole-heartedly agree with the recommendation. The passages poking fun at Lady Hester are priceless!

Proulx's The Shipping News in a pairing with The Ashley Book of Knots.

Os.

Two other books, which I don't think have been mentioned, Norfolk's The Pope's Rhinocerous and Matthew Kneale's English Passengers.

You know, I can understand wanting to read Mein Kampf (done it myself and, not wanting to begin a discussion on it, let's just say I agree with HMOKeefe's #400), but needing a deluxe edition of it--let alone TWO--that, I do not understand. Well, obviously, unless the prospective buyer is a fan. In that case, one could even envision wanting a fine Limited Edition, bound in primo Jewish or Gypsy or Commie or gay or Russian leather (pick your fave! or collect 'em all!), with limitation numbers tattooed in the fashion of Lager inmate serials... What a coup for Folio, what a pleasure for connoisseurs!

The only benign (if tasteless to the point of idiocy) reason for getting that heap of ordure in a fancy package I can imagine is, well, the existence and policy of a basically non-selective publisher like Easton Press, who apparently never met a bundle of print unworthy of some calf, gilt and a ribbon marker. But, not to be too hard on EP, not that long ago all books were produced with what today would appear to be luxury materials and an uncommon promise of longevity. In that way, EP is just following an older tradition.

But, as for Folio Society and the likelihood of their publishing Mein Kampf, I think they have demonstrated a very different editorial approach, at least so far: every book choice Folio makes in a way consecrates that book, it expresses the idea that the title is "worthy" of incarnating in a fine, attractive Folio edition not simply because it's there and somebody will buy it, or even because it's interesting, or significant (how many thousands of books answering to these characteristics are there?), but because it embodies a kind of beauty--whether it is a work of literary art, humour, history, science--to a remarkable degree. And it is this aesthetic rationale that I do not see permitting a Folio edition of Mein Kampf, perhaps before any other (don't want to enter into the American/British/European differences...)

LolaWasler,
Well said - I couldn't agree with you more.

So Lola, how do you REALLY feel about a Folio edition of Mein Kampf?

(If your paragraph 2 is "not being too hard on EP," I'd hate to think what you'd say if you let it all hang out. Incidentally, I think EP's editorial policies are just the opposite of what you quite perceptively described as the Folio Society's.)

Thanks, elmaynard.

#423

So... I figure we're in agreement? I was contrasting EP and FS. By the way, I've got nothing against EP, it's just not--generally--my cup of ink. (But some of their editions I admired...)

It's very sad that my passion is so often either unappreciated or misinterpreted. :) If Folio were to print Mein Kampf, I'd be surprised, but not outraged to the point of ditching them. I paid for my copy of MK like a good citizen (an American publisher, I think, and there's some odd story behind their publishing "rights" for the book), read it with profit, and wouldn't dream of dissuading anyone from reading it--quite the contrary--whatever misgivings I may justifiably have, seeing the author nevertheless became a smashing popular success. On the other hand, I've wondered since if perhaps he'd been that successful because almost no one HAD read MK, even after he came to power--lots of anecdotes of MKs with uncut pages in the private collections of Nazi bigwigs... I mean, you can't read it without diagnosing a loon, within the first chapter.

Then again, this is a very scary, very stupid world.

Lola, to insinuate that any buyer of a luxury edition of an objectionable book “must be a fan” is both ridiculous and regrettable.

People get their knickers in a twist over this all the time.

It seems to me that it is because it is a relatively recent era we are discussing.

I don't see many people gnashing their teeth over books penned by Roman Emperors who had a picnic as they watched slaves and prisoners being ripped to bits below them for sport.

Perhaps, we can happily purchase Mein Kampf in a couple of thousand years?

you know what will never happen?

a FS Mein Kampf

Americans in particular would freak the hell out and FS would get a lot of unwanted publicity.

it's not worth it and it serves no purpose. it's not like they methodically reproduce the most *important* books in history. the publish The Pursuit of Love with pretty pictures. i love it and it is what it is.

#425

I don't pretend to have exhausted the reasons one might have for obtaining multiple deluxe editions of Mein Kampf (not just ANY "objectionable" book); I think the two I offered--speculatively--can be reasonably expected to be the most common. Yours, I'm sure, are entirely different and unfathomable in their idiosyncratic, quirky refinement. I probably wouldn't understand.

#426

I purchased my copy quite "happily", knickers untwisted, and I see no reason why you couldn't too, right now.

"...books penned by Roman Emperors..."

Other than Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, which books were penned? According to Suetonius, Nero fancied himself a writer, but I didn't think any of his works survived.... (And I guarantee I, for one, will NOT purchase MK in a thousand years!!!!

>427

Why in particular Americans?

>428

You wear knickers? What a disappointment--I reckoned you to be more iconoclastic.....

I have a lot of Easton Press books and many of them are from the "Books that Changed the World" series/subscription. I have read many of the books from the series precisely because I am interested in books that changed the world, even though many of them were not at all what I would normally read (economics? Zzzzz; Political Theory? Sometimes interesting but Zzzzzz without an espresso before hand; religious texts? Some better than others but all great for my world view and understanding of people...)

I assume that the EP Mein Kampf comes from that series? I have one brochure listing titles in the series; this particular book is not on it but I don't know that the list was meant to be comprehensive. Change can be for the better or worse, of course, so I would not at all be surprised to see Mein Kampf in this series and would have read it if they sent it to me. The only titles I declined were ones I already had.

As Cat Stevens said/sang, "I'm on the road to find out". Not just what I think I want to find out or expect to find out, either.

django,

if FS published Mein Kampf, it would be seen as anti-semitic in our country. for better or worse, we are going to make hay over things like that.

I have to respectully disagree with 431. I think that this won't even make a blip on the screen of most Americans, but that is just my opinion

> 429

None that I know, though many have commentaries by third parties.

The point I am making, if we uncovered the memoirs or philosophy of Genghis Khan or Julias Caesar or any other marauding axe wielding murderer, we would happily print them as a historical fancy.

My assertion is that Hitler is treated differently because it is still fresh in society's memory of those dark days.

Wow, this is genuinely confusing. Mein Kampf is obviously an important text historically. As booklovers and, more specifically, lovers of fine editions, I think we can all agree that books worth owning are worth owning in fine editions (all else being equal). So why, recognizing the documentary value of this book, are some of us happy to buy it, read it, shelve it, but only as a tatty, inferior paperback? Is the idea some kind of snub to Hitler, to deny him Nigerian goatskin? He doesn't get the royalties, you know. Shallow moral posturing.

I think we can all agree that books worth owning are worth owning in fine editions

Not really. For example, the lowest-rated book in my catalog is Roger Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness. It is 99% dreck and 1% really funny bits about a character who is an agnostic priest. I keep it around for those bits, but 1) I never would've paid more than a couple of bucks for it; 2) if it wasn't a little mass market paperback that I could shove into a tight corner or behind other books, I wouldn't bother letting it take up shelf space; 3) as I find the book to be of no artistic value, I don't know why I'd want an artistic presentation of it.

IMHO, I'm in agreement with Lola that the "Folio treatment" is a celebration of a book - that's why I've updated some of my favourite works from paperback to FS edition. It would make me very uncomfortable to feel that I was treating Mein Kampf with the same regard that I give to books I love. I haven't read it, by the way; I see it as a historical document that might be worth reading, but I certainly don't consider it worth owning - in any edition at all. That's my knee-jerk emotional reaction to the idea of MK in goatskin and gilt - it's distasteful.

>434

Good points. In some ways, if a book is worth reading for any purpose, the binding and printing details are incidental: to those who prefer to read nicely bound and printed editions, it makes sense to them that all their books should be thus; to those who don't care about the physical nature of the book, a tatty paperback Bible or Shakespeare is still the Bible or Shakespeare.

However, I do think that some subjects are so emotionally charged for some people, that to accuse them of "shallow moral posturing" isn't using your empathetic abilities to their best. If I had my family turned into soap at Treblinka, I doubt that I could stand to even look at a copy of Hitler's book. Let's try to put ourselves in the other fellow's shoes (mine are 14D and seem to work for everyone, especially those who need to forge shallow bodies of water).

I do think, however, that some sensitivity must also be shown to the design of the book when considering its contents--this is just good bookmaking. I can't say that I would choose goatskin and silk moire endpapers for MK, and were Folio to produce it, I think they would be pretty good at matching clothes (so to speak) to content. Something more along the lines of their Rise and Fall of the Third Reich would be appropriate.

When James Agee was asked how he would like a special edition of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, he eschewed leather and gilt and wished for the book to be printed in the dark blue linen binding used by U.S. Government Publications--very sober, and sturdy. Again, fitting the subject matter to the design.

(belemnite said pretty much what I was trying to say--and in less time--but I'll keep the post anyway)

>435

I anticipated such a response, and I know where you're coming from - that's why I added in brackets, "all else being equal". The question, in connection with the lowest-rated book in your catalogue, is whether you would have bought it for the same price in a fine edition. If you would have, then the question becomes how much you are prepared to pay for the superior binding. This will differ from person to person, but what I take exception to is the idea that one would deliberately eschew a superior edition because one objected to the book itself, but not so much as not to buy, read, shelve it.

Your book has "no artistic value", but apparently it has entertainment value. My contention is that MK has historical and socio-/psycho-logical value. Presumably if a book had no value whatsoever we wouldn't part with hard cash (let alone precious reading time) consuming it. Once we accept the rationale for purchasing "unsympathetic" (on whatever level) literature, we are open to the idea of paying more or less for it.

Debasing the physical object, the book, as a means of punishing Hitler posthumously is primitive voodooism and out of place here. Having said that, perhaps it is a natural extension of FS devotees' fetishistic adoration of the book-object.

431: I doubt it.

On Amazon US there are already a bunch of translations and versions of Mein Kampf. Since most Americans have never heard of FS, I don't see why they'd notice or care about yet another version of the thing.

I saw a fim on TV the other day where someone is holding a copy of Mein Kampf. Another character sidles up to him and looks over his shoulder. "What's that you're reading?" he asks, innocently. "Me in Camp F?"

Some good one liners from Leonb...I particularly like the idea of denying Hitler nigerian goatskin and using primitive voodism as punishment

Can we move on from this topic?

Two books worth considering is To Serve them all my Days and Good Bye Mr. Chips.

>346 I would second an edition of William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain as it would fit perfectly in FS's excellent Travel and Exploration series.

A bit off topic: For people with an interest in Travel and Exploration, I can recommend a membership in the Hakluyt Society. You pay an annual membership fee of about GBP50 at the moment and get all books published that year for free (normally 2-3 books per year), plus their previously published books are highly discounted for members.

I'm just reading their A traveller in thirteenth-century Arabia and its highly interesting.

The website is Hakluyt Society

445> Thanks. This looks great! I have several volumes from the Hakluyt Society already and it looks like I will be getting more.

I am not near my Folio 60. Can anyone tell me if Folio has done The Man Who Would Be King?

HMO - they've done Kipling's 21 Tales consisting of the following: 'In the House of Suddhoo', 'Tods' Amendment', 'Pig', 'The Story of Muhammad Din', 'A Wayside Comedy', 'The Man who would be King', 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep', 'Without Benefit of Clergy', 'Moti Guj - Mutineer', 'In the Rukh', 'Brugglesmith', 'Love-o'-Women', 'The Devil and the Deep Sea', '·007', 'The Maltese Cat', 'The Elephant's Child', 'The House Surgeon', 'Regulus', 'My Son's Wife', 'A Madonna of the Trenches' and 'Dayspring Mishandled'

Edited to add: In the UK, I see that one has just gone up for sale on Ebay by chance

It is in a collection of Short Stories titles, Twenty One Tales and I suspect that it is in the multi-volume folio series of Kipling's writings.

This thread is too long. I suggest this other thread be used instead.

> 449

Yes, it is in the Complete Tales as well.

Thanks for the info. Other than the Kipling poems, I don't have any of his other works in Folio editions.

A worthy addition to 20th century american fiction would be any of William Maxwell's novels, They Came Like Swallows. The Chateau, etc.

377 - "I would like to see three of Nicholas Basbanes works in FS editions."

I agree, even if for no other reason than to get "A Gentle Madness" and "Every Book, Its Reader" in versions without glued bindings.

It just came to me a good book or series of books would be the works of James Harriot. I have always enjoyed his stories. by the way I second (or is that third) the motion of Brisbanes' works as entirely apppropriate. I would further the idea that "THe Library at Home" would also make a suitable addition.

455: "The Library at Home"

Do you mean Alberto Manguel's "The Library at Night"? If so, I concur.

I'm sure they must have been mentioned before, but I'd really go for a set of Virginia Woolf's works. I know that Between the Acts, To The Lighthouse, and A Room of One's Own have been done at various times, but I'd love for FS to do Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, The Years and The Waves, plus other fiction (maybe even include Michael Cunningham's The Hours). The Common Reader too? Or even some individual editions.

A couple of days ago, I visited the John Bunyan museum in Bedford, housed in the 19th century chapel built over the original the great preacher knew. The museum is interesting as far as it goes, but there are rather too many "reputed to be..." labels!

However, it got me thinking about the Folio Society edition of Pilgrim's Progress, which dates back to 1962, although it has had a new binding in the last few years. It has engravings from an eighteenth century edition. Folio 60 mentions a reprint in 2006, but it's now out of print. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problem as the Folio Gibbon. Members of this group will know that the Folio edition of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has severely-pruned footnotes. The Folio Pilgrim's Progress has none of Bunyan's important marginalia at all. This means that the reader can't see the numerous Biblical references that he gives, which are the key to his thought and imagery. So, it would be great if the Society were to produce a "proper" and complete edition, possibly an LE, with perhaps a set of newly-commissioned illustrations to distinguish it from the many, many other versions produced over the last 330+ years.

Now that you mention FS Gibbon, which publisher would you recommend that is not abridged and has the full footnotes?

> 455 I what I did mean to type was "Books at Home" but I do second the idea of "Library at Night" as a further addition.
However... IF ...all the books we have listed came to fruition we as a group would have to live several lifetimes in order to read them and to ...PAY?!... for them!!!!

460 -- I couldn't find that book when I searched for it here and at Amazon, could you provide me a link or ISBN? I like the title anyway.

> 459 "Now that you mention FS Gibbon, which publisher would you recommend that is not abridged and has the full footnotes?"

See previous discussion on:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/72090#1919974

especially messages 14–17.

Also, http://www.librarything.com/topic/43582#1585222 , message 52, with examples of Folio's abridged notes

Let> 461 Let me go find the book, I will stop trying to give you incorrect information. My apologies.

I would love to see a reprint of the original, 2 volume, colour plate, fold-out map version of "The Worst Journey In The World" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Quite apart from it being the finest travel book ever written, I have never seen an original edition, and as it has been in print continuously for 80 years or so surely it would claim a decent market.

> 464

I agree. That's a book that I would die for.

I'd agree too - wasn't that one of those listed in the FS surveys?

> 466

It was listed Willoyd, which gives me some hope that it may eventually appear.

Well, fingers crossed.

If it is published, how about a similar austral follow-up? "Uttermost Part Of The Earth" by E. Lucas Bridges, the life of a missionary in Tierra del Fuego. Long out of print, even the Reader's Union edition fetches silly money now.

Does anyone know if they've ever published a translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh? It seems odd that the Folio Society wouldn't be interested in publishing the oldest surviving manuscript in western civilization literature.

Someone mentioned Robertson Davies and Timothy Findley earlier in this thread; I'd love to see Folio editions of The Cunning Man (Davies) and The Piano Man's Daughter (Findley).

The Epic Of Gilgamesh is available right now on their website.

I doubt any British publisher would be likely to reprint it, but I would love to have a beautiful edition of Esther Forbes' Johnny Tremain. I loved this book when I was a boy, and would love to have a gift edition for my son. The great Lynd Ward did the original illustrations, and though I have a nostalgic fondness for them, they were mostly small B&W pen drawings, and I think illustrations in full color are what the book deserves.

Atheistic: I just searched the Canadian Folio site and couldn't find Gilgamesh. I checked Myths, Fiction, Limited Editions, Current Pubications, and New Releases 2010; which section did you find it in?

LovelyPride, just type Gilgamesh into the search box and it should show up. I can also find it under Myths and Legends on the Canadian site. It's definitely there because I already have my copy sitting on my bookshelf.

I think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance would make a great book for the Folio treatment. I'm reading On the Road now and I love the way Folio have put in the illustrative photos. A similar treatment for Zen, another American road trip book that became totemic, would work really well.

I wonder whay they've never done any Faulkner? I'd have thought he's ripe to be covered in a series like their Conrad & F Scott Fitzgerald ones.

As I Lay Dying cropped up in one of the surveys that someone circulated a while back: I'd buy that in a second.

Yest Gilgamesh is on the Canmbadian site. Haniwitch could you lend me yours until I get mine?

Sorry, Barton, but I don't lend my FS books out to anyone (not even my own brother). The only people who will be able to read my copy would be my nephew and his mother but only because they live with me. And the chances of their reading it or any other book in our house are rather slim as they wouldn't touch a book even if you paid them to read it. My sister will read the newspaper and my nephew has rather narrow reading interests (gun manuals and novels about a military sniper written by a particular author). Now if you lived a little closer I might consent to your visiting me and looking at the book under my very watchful eye. I'm very protective of my "good" books. Hopefully yours will reach you quickly. I was rather surprised that mine had shipped so soon.

> 477 No worry I will ger mine soon enough! Here's to hoping since you live just down the street from me, 17 that is. ;)

Or any John Wyndham - they're all marvellous in their own way.

I forgot to add that I've been fairly apoplectic about the Harriet Vane collection of Dorothy L. Sayers since it came out all those years ago: FS never printed the final, "Busman's Honeymoon". How that came about is a mystery: the rest were put out as being 'the set'!
Grrrrrr...

Given that the current economic situation has boosted the reputation of Keynes much more than it has the reputation of the classical economists, maybe we could have an edition of "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", to go alongside "the Wealth of Nations".

> 481

I second the choice.

>481

I would opt for The Theory of Moral Sentiments first, maybe in the same format as Wealth of Nations, but different color so to make it as a set. The two works should be read together anyway.

In the philosophy section I would love to see a 'philosophy of science' set: Popper's 'Logic of Scientific Discovery' and Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolution', both influential classics worthy of the Folio treatment.

>484

When I was an undergraduate, Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies had a tremendous influence on me. I'd like to see it reprinted.

Keynes would be great and timely. Popper too - above all, The Open Society, which was also an influence on me in my school days - in particular the "Spell of Plato" volume (Plato had been a dangerous fascination for a while!). Please no abridgement or culling of notes!

>484

In addition I would also treasure something like an essential Chomsky reader.

Has Folio ever produced any of the Tarzan books? Not really my cup of tea but they are childhood favorites of my husband and would be a great addition our shelves.

>488 It would appear not. Easton Press has.

>488

Obviously not to Folio (or Easton Press) standards - Oxford University Press has just published a hardback reprint of the first Tarzan book ; Tarzan of the Apes.