Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - FABLELISTIK EDITIONS 2025

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - FABLELISTIK EDITIONS VIOLET COLLECTOR’S LIMITED EDITION 2025

A PICTORIAL REVIEW

5000 un-numbered copies
Signed by Rebecca Yarros, and digitally signed by Rebecca Fara, Helena Schmalz, Alexis Lampley and Virginia Allyn.
Fablelistik designed line art by Alexis Lampley throughout the book - epigraph pages with chapter-specific Easter eggs hidden throughout, and dragon-wrapped dropcaps to open each chapter.
Twelve original illustrations by Helena Schmalz, including 3 specific to each edition.
Parapet scene illustrated by Helena Schmalz as front endpaper.
Reimagined map of The Continent by Virginia Allyn as back endpaper.
Reimagined map of Basgiath War College by Virginia Allyn as frontispiece.
Book cover features a gritty silver matte finish wrap-around stamped in black and gold with a dragon design by Alexis Lampley.
Offset printed.
Smyth sewn with rounded back.
Black ribbon page marker.
Slipcase embellished with wrap-around colour foil-stamping and 3D embossing with dragon eye art by Rebecca Fara.
25.5x17.7cm.
656 pages
US$330



Wrap-around montage of slipcase






































































There has been a lot of discussion about Fableistik Editions on the Fine Press Forum, particularly with regard to it being a fine press or not, thus this review.

I ordered this book to obtain an early sample of the publisher’s work, and the title interested me. I have only perused, not read, the book, but my first impressions are that it is NOT fine press but quality press, similar to the Folio Society standard editions at their best, but with the addition of signatures (five for this book, but only one is real, the others digital) and a page marker ribbon.

The limitation is 5000 copies (there must have been a lot of writer’s cramp for the author signing this many copies), which by no stretch can be considered a limited edition. Many trade hardbacks, and Folio Society standard editions, are printed in lower numbers. The only comparable publisher that claims that 5000 copies is a limited edition is Taschen, but their LEs are far larger in scale and scope.

The edition that I own and reviewed is the base edition. A numbered edition is available for US$1300 (500 copies) and a lettered edition for US$6400 (26 copies).

The Fableistik Editions are expensive for what they are, about twice that of a similar Folio Society book, and whether the signatures are worth that extra is for each collector to decide.

I will follow the future of Fableistik with interest but cannot see myself buying another book from them.

An index of the other illustrated reviews in the this series can be viewed here.

Thank you for sharing as usual. The art is reminiscent of 1990s comic books, and is it just me, or does everyone have the same expression, whether they’re running, kissing, arguing, dying or making out.

>2 What_What: I think it's called gen z stare. It's fashionable.

>1 wcarter:

Excellent review and summary.

Easy pass for me. This is a glorified and expensive comic book.

Thanks for the detailed review. Not a book I'm personally interested but I did purchase the collector's edition of Addie La Rue. I actually quite like the edition for the price. I only have a couple of Fine Press books to compare it to but it is certainly better quality than other genres press such as Subterranean and Grim Oak. Also feels a bit better than a normal Folio Society book in my opinion. I also find it interesting for the edition of Addie La Rue that they seemingly reduced the print run from 2500 to 1500(at least thats what it says on the limitation page). I definitely think that there are things that Fablelistik can definitely improve upon, but I might consider another purchase if they publish another edition I'm interested in and the price is right.

Speaking of price, I'm curious where your pricing is coming from? From what I can see, and from what I paid for my edition(same price as Fourth Wing was), the prices you are listing are almost double for every edition than what is listed on their website?

>5 SollanEmperor: Even at the correct prices, at least here in the UK it's (£175) double to triple the price of a standard FS edition (£50-£90).

I know FS is more expensive in the US though, shipping costs are rather silly nowadays.

>6 AstulTheShepherd: True enough! I think Fablelistik's prices should honestly be more in line with what they were offering for their black friday discounts then I think their editions would be more compelling for the price. I'm not sure I would pay full price at the moment so we shall see if they do lower their prices in general as nothing is sold out.

>7 SollanEmperor: The lettered edition price is nuts for something that doesn't seem that great.

The vast majority of us are NOT the demographic this book was written for. The book is a "romantasy" and clearly written for women. This does not make it a "bad" book, just not one for most of us. I will say that I think the artwork is apropos for what it is. It really does not look any worse than many FS books I have read. I will also point out, at least here in the USA, the book retails for $185.00 and is also currently discounted to $157.25 with free shipping which I think is reasonable for what it is. I do agree 5000 is a huge limitation, but according to Wikipedia: "Fourth Wing became a viral phenomenon on BookTok, where the hashtags "#FourthWing" and "#RebeccaYarros" have more than a billion views combined. Its popularity led it to reach No. 1 on Amazon's bestseller list as well as the No. 1 spot on The New York Times Bestseller list, where it stayed for 18 weeks." -- so with that in mind I imagine the publisher expects significant interest, whether they get it or not remains to be seen :)

>8 AstulTheShepherd: Oh I absolutely agree. But then again for me, most lettered editions are out of my price point regardless so I don't even bother looking at those beyond out of a bit of envy :)

It does seem you get better specs from a fine press such as say Suntup, Conversation Tree or Curious King than what Fablelistik offers so that is something that the folks at Fablelistik should work on.

I also agree that most of us are not the target audience in particular for Fourth Wing anyways. I do find it interesting that for the same price, they were able to do a decently nice cloth for Addie La Rue but Fourth Wing seemingly got inferior boards. Maybe something to do with the massive print run?

>11 SollanEmperor: Ha I'm the same, I drool at the lettered but I can barely afford the "base" editions.

I really struggle with that about of money for what looks like standard hardback paper, I'm sure its nicer than that but still. I, sadly, think it may be because they assume it'll sell anyway as it's a massively popular title among people with little to no knowledge of good bookmaking. Which makes it even worse!

>4 dlphcoracl: My summation also!

>11 SollanEmperor: as someone in the demographic and literary taste adjacent to 'Fourth Wing' (person in their 20's contempary SFF fan) i am assuming the price-point compared to quality is a combo of V.E. Schwab being a very popular author in her genre space (comtemp SFF) but not as large as one of the top 5 books checked out at the library in 2025 (at least at 1 large city's system, example for scales of popularity) and the quite frankly the 'special limited editions' that fans compare it to Illumicrate/Owlcrate/ etc. provide mass-market hardbacks with endpapers, redesigned covers, and sprayed/ printed edges with decent value occasionally for the extras front end and then vastly inflated re-sale prices means the audience probably is primed to go with the prices. To some degree at least, clearly it hasn't been entirely successful what with needing sales prices, but still, the younger i.e. less discerning target demographic compared to La Rue might've let them cut more corners it could just be like you said with the numbers. Like the ebay listings for 1st editions with this or that sprayed/ printed edges go for eye popping prices for what one would get.

Illumicate isn't fine press but yeah the art is about what you get with Illumicrate so not surprised there in terms of art direction. That is what is popular in the space.

Also it is annoying that I think the book is bad, but half of the criticisms are just that it's a fantasy book for women and not trying to be LoTR or Wheel of Time. (re; Romantasy often not having very well-written prose or plots and uncritical handling of gender+ racial matters while trying to be feminist/ progressive to match reader expectations )

>12 AstulTheShepherd: At the holiday sale price of 157.25 USD with free shipping, it's not a bad price all things considered. The overall quality is very, very far above any modern mass-market standard hardcover. This is more like a typical Subterranean Press title, aside from the unfortunate choice of paper covered boards. A low/mid quality cloth covered board would have made this a much better package, but I was still quite satisfied with my copy.

Holding the book, I also realized conscious effort is needed to separately judge the physical production quality from the content and artwork (at least in my experience). I think a modern YA-style romantasy, both in content and art style is likely to 'unfavorably' influence the evaluation of the book by the majority on this forum, if only subconsciously.

If this were a modern epic fantasy like say Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson (I'm still hoping for Malazan to be published by Centipede or Folio), I would have been all over it and eager for the next title in the series, even if the physical package were exactly the same.

What? No titling on the spine? Pet peeve. I like it on the book AND on the slipcase/box. Otherwise it looks nice.