The Folio Society Raises Its US Profile and Celebrates in NY and Boston
NEW YORK, NY, October 9, 2014—The Folio Society (www.foliosociety.com), London-based publisher of fine books since 1947, announces new initiatives and programming in the United States, including sponsorship of the New Yorker Festival (October 10-12), part of a broader promotional campaign with the magazine.
As part of its sponsorship of the New Yorker Festival, The Folio Society will host a pop-up shop at McNally Jackson during the festival weekend, October 10-12, and until November 14. On Saturday, October 11, at 5pm, iconic musician, poet and National Book Award-winner (Just Kids) Patti Smith will sign Folio’s new edition of Wuthering Heights, for which she wrote the introduction. McNally Jackson is located at 52 Prince Street, between Lafayette and Mulberry. A variety of Folio Society titles including The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dubliners will be available for purchase.
Hallmarks of The Folio Society’s publications are the specially commissioned introductions by literary experts, and illustrations by artists from around the globe. Many prominent writers and illustrators who call New York and the United States home have recently contributed to new editions from The Folio Society, including Western Massachusetts-based Simon Winchester, whose The Surgeon of Crowthorne (previously released in the U.S. as The Professor and the Madman) appears this fall; New York-based illustrators Jillian Tamaki (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas), Victo Ngai (Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies and one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Art and Style), and Rovina Cai (Wuthering Heights); and Los Angeles-based Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley, who wrote the introduction to The Warden.
Other exciting contributors to new editions include Emma Donoghue, who wrote the introduction to Folio’s new edition of Jane Eyre; and Irvine Welsh, who introduces A Clockwork Orange.
The publisher recently established several retail partnerships in the U.S. to extend the reach of the brand and offer the opportunity to experience the titles first hand. In New York, a selection of editions may now be found at Chartwell Booksellers, Community Bookstore, The Reader and Writers Shop at the New York Public Library, and The Frick Collection.
The Folio Society’s programming includes a celebration of its edition of Dylan Thomas’s Selected Poems at Contrada in New York’s East Village, with Eileen Myles, Frank Delaney, Simon Van Booy and Trisha Low reading at 8pm on Monday, October 13. Contrada is located at 84 East 4th Street, at Second Avenue. This event is free and open to the public, with books for sale.
Folio will also present a conversation on the art of illustrating fiction with New York-based illustrators Victo Ngai and Sam Weber (Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451), moderated by the publisher’s Art Director, Sheri Gee, on November 3 as part of Illustrators Week at the Society of Illustrators. The Society of Illustrators is located at 128 East 63rd Street, New York.
In Boston, the publisher is delighted and honoured to highlight its exquisite range of limited editions, with its Goya: Disasters of War on display in the Learning Space of the Goya: Order and Disorder exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This landmark exhibition is the largest retrospective of the artist to take place in America in 25 years and will be on view from October 12, 2014 - January 19, 2015.
The Folio Society returns to the Boston Book Festival on Saturday, October 25, with a booth in Boston’s Copley Square showcasing a selection of member favourites and new releases. A special session, “Childhood Treasures: The Role of Illustration in Children’s Literature”, will be hosted by Folio’s Managing Editor Johanna Geary and will feature Harvard Professor and folklore expert Maria Tatar, introducer of Folio’s The Princess and the Goblin and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Sterling Hundley, illustrator of Folio’s new edition of Treasure Island, due to be published this month.
Readers may also now find a selection of The Folio Society’s titles at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About The Folio Society
For over 65 years The Folio Society has been publishing beautiful illustrated editions of the world's greatest books. The Folio Society believes that the literary content of a book should be matched by its physical form. With specially commissioned illustrations, many of The Folio Society’s editions are further enhanced with introductions written by leading figures in their fields: novelists, journalists, academics, scientists and artists.
With over 400 beautifully crafted and illustrated editions of the world’s greatest fiction and non-fiction currently in print, The Folio Society is one of the world’s leading producers of high-quality printed books. The Folio Society’s current publishing list covers fiction, biography, history, science, philosophy, children's literature, humour, myths and legends and more. Exceptional in content and craftsmanship and maintaining the very highest standards of fine book production, Folio Society editions are created to last for generations.
Folio Society titles are available for purchase from www.foliosociety.com, at selected retailers or by telephone: 866-255-8280.
