Folio Society’s Chinese printers

Interesting to see the news that the V&A actively changed an exhibition catalogue in response to its Chinese printers being unwilling to print certain images (maps of China, images of Lenin). I may be wrong but I think the printer in question, C&C Offset, is one of those used by FS occasionally?

I think most concerns on here regarding the use of Chinese printers have been with respect to quality but perhaps there might be other reasons to be thoughtful about this point.

It would be interesting to see whether there is any pattern of FS’s ‘controversial’ books NOT being printed in China. Let’s hope that FS’s choice of illustrations has never been dictated by its printers …

I’m not trying to make a big political point, just thought it was an interesting story and I suddenly thought I recognised the name of the printer from a different context.

The Times article is behind a paywall but if you search for V&A and C&C Offset you should find i

I'm a V&A member, and at the risk of coming across as Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, I've emailed them saying I don't want to be sent censored material and asking them to confirm it won't happen again.

It's an interesting choice. I would be surprised if the categories "members of museums" and "people happy to put up with state censorship" overlap very much (or, indeed, the latter and "book lovers").

Folio stopped using Chinese printers around three years ago - all of their current printers are in the UK and Europe. Even when they did, it was a small percentage of their books - I think there's a half dozen left in their back catalog.

Here's a link to an article that's not behind a paywall.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/apr/14/v-and-a-censored-catalogues-dema...

And while I understand the desire to produce cheaply, there should really be limits. A British museum letting the Chinese government dictate what they can have printed is completely unacceptable to me.

And I was really glad when FS moved away from using a Chinese printer. One should think hard about whether or not one wants to financially support this regime.

I'm unclear why FS no longer use Chinese printers but I don't go along with all the negativity here. I bought a copy of The Folio Book of War Poetry in the New Year sale and this was printed by C&C Offset Printing. The quality is at least equal to other FS printers. I've got no interest in making political points but I imagine that any Chinese business is simply obliged to comply with Chinese law

>5 RavenSeeker:

Yes, I agree with you all the way.

Folio occasionally used C and C as long ago as last century, in particular for books with multiple photographic illustrations at which they excelled -- hence their frequent employment by museums, libraries and art houses such as Thames and Hudson. At the time they had been in business in Singapore since the early part of last century. When Singapore came under Chinese control they had no choice but to follow Chinese rules. There was no drop in quality. If some FS choices looked cheesy it's because that's what FS ordered -- you get what you pay for.
More and more books are now published in Eastern European and Asian countries, and nobody asks about the conditions in which employees work and live, or how they impact the environment. All but a few British printers are owned by multinational profiteers who acquired them by means which would make Scrooge blush. If you insist on morality and fair play in book production you're going to have a tiny library.

>7 Jayked: Did you mean Hong Kong rather than Singapore?

In any case while I do agree the quality of the couple of Folio books I have printed by C&C are very good (The Silmarillion and Dr Zhivago), the particular situation mentioned in the article is really quite bone-headed where the map in question was a historical map and not a contemporary one.

>4 SF-72: Fully agreed.

>5 RavenSeeker: I don't go along with all the negativity here
The "negativity" comes from the fact that China is no friend to the West -- that includes Europe, USA, Australia, and also countries that have strong ties to the West, such as Japan and South Korea. It's ridiculous that we should support a country that is actively trying to undermine our democracies. People say "I don't want to get too political" or "these printers are just following the law" but I think that's ignoring the problem and just hoping it will go away -- it won't. We need to stop supporting China economically.

And even all politics aside, my experience is that books printed in China are substantially inferior in quality to books printed in Europe or the USA. As one example, years ago there were some books printed in China by Centipede Press. The books I received ALL had some defects. When I spoke to Centipede about this, the owner told me he's done with Chinese printers, and I can't say I blame him. I'm not saying all Chinese goods are terrible or anything like that, but I have not had good experience with books printed in China.

>9 astropi:

Exactly as regards China, and of course that doesn't just go for books but also for much more important goods.

And I had the same experience when it comes to books meant to be not a bit above mass market (e. g. Kickstarter editions), but actual high quality. Several that were printed in China were a mess - one falling apart just from being transported, and the whole edition was like that.

I'm not familiar with the Victoria and Albert Museum; is it considered a major museum, a "national institution" etc.? Is it affiliated with the royal family and/or run by the government?

>11 St._Troy: It is the world's largest museum of the decorative arts, dates from the 1850s, and is run by the British government. Right up there with the British Museum in terms of prominence in the UK; probably one of the dozen or so most prominent art museums worldwide.

>12 ambyrglow: Thanks.

I struggle to understand why such an entity would accept printer-specific restrictions of any kind (move on to a printer capable of executing the task as defined).

>13 St._Troy: Off the cuff, as someone whose job involves contracting for a fair amount of commercial printing--cost. The cost of commercial printing has absolutely skyrocketed in the past ten years (mostly, specifically, the cost of paper), and China remains a bastion of affordability. For various reasons I can't hire Chinese printers at work, and what this means is we flatly no longer provide most of the print publications we once did. We can't afford to.

I understand that incompetent providers of services or goods are often cheaper than capable ones; what I don't understand is why any serious entity (this is why I asked about the V&A) would consider incompetent alternatives (in my jobs, over the decades, when sourcing anything, I only considered alternatives with the necessary capabilities or characteristics - if I needed a freezer, I wouldn't buy a refrigerator because it was cheaper).

The Bodleian Library in Oxford helps to maintain its availability to the public by selling copies of illustrated books from its vast collection. For 16.99 pounds you can buy Gray's Elegy with full-page illustrations by Agnes Miller Parker, sewn, on good quality paper; for 30 pounds Clare Leighton's "Rural Life, an Anthology," 180 pages clothbound with numerous full- and half-page illustrations; for 25 pounds Twelfth Night with engravings by Eric Ravilious (the Golden Cockerel edition). I also own most of these engravings in limited editions -- Wood Lea Press, Fleece Press etc. -- and to my eye the Bodleian versions lose nothing by comparison in reproduction and paper quality. They are all the work of C & C Offset. I seriously doubt that any British or European printer would attempt the commission at double the price.
It would be foolish of the Library to drop a lucrative aid to survival. They have full control of what they decide to reprint from their collection. Should they decide that the world needs a reprint of something obnoxious to the Chinese government they can farm it out to a printer at a price that matches the high morality of the politically correct.