Summer Sale 2023

Folio sent out a marketing email today, which slightly teased the upcoming summer sale, among its book promotions:

"SUMMER SALE The online Summer Sale is coming soon! With savings of up to 50% on books in every genre, this is the perfect opportunity to choose holiday reads. Keep an eye on our website for more details."

Any predictions? Hopes? Thoughts? Aside from book-specific hopes, my main hope is that any deals they offer more than balance out the shipping/taxes us US buyers have the deal with.

Predictions:
Long Walk to Freedom, The Stories of English, Shah of Shahs, and the rest of the usual suspects.

Wishes:
SPQR, Silent Spring, Fear and Loathing, anything of Murakami, any McCarthy, Thucydides LE. I suspect none of these will be in the sale if past sales are any indication of the things they typically discount.

I'm pretty caught up on stuff they have available, and the sale is unlikely to cover new releases. A break on US shipping might be enough incentive for me to splurge however, provided there are some decent bargains.

FS sales died about three years ago.

I was really surprised that The Long Walk to Freedom made the last sale. I have no real hopes for this sale, due to the current size of my collection, I have to be pretty picky and I have everything I really want (except for Byzantium but that won’t make a sale) and shipping is so expensive.

Hope springs eternal for a substantial cut on the Christianity set, Europe set or the Iron Kingdom set. Although at this point I've waited so long they've gone up so much in price even a half off is barely beyond what they started at.

As thin as the sales have been these last few years there have been some notable exceptions every time. Montaigne's Essays was a steal. Nibelungen got a lot of praise. I just had an order when they offered the free shipping so I'm pretty set.

I predict same titles we have had over the past few sales just to get rid of them. Not sure what treasures they will have up for offer. The sales have been extremely mediocre lately.

The problem with publishing so much popular genre fiction is that I guess Folio is paying way more royalties for 007 or King than for less well-known books (and obviously more than classics in the public domain). This must make it difficult for them to offer deep discounts on an increasing share of their catalogue.

In any case, I too am pessimistic. I am planning an order soon so I will probably wait until the sale on the off chance that something piques my interest and I can save on shipping.

I think the most interesting points to guess are:

-Whether Oryx & Crake & Kavalier & Klay will finally run out
-When will the last Tey book go out of stock
-How many more sales will The Clicking of Cuthbert endure
-If we will have any new book there? One of the strongest candidates IMO is Half of a Yellow Sun, though it only has one year (launched in 2022 summer collection).

>9 dyhtstriyk: Some of their past sales and restocking confused me. FS included The World Turned Upside Down for something like 75% or 80% off to flog what I thought were the last remaining copies of the book and then low and behold, they restocked it and at $90. Who knows if Kavalier & Klay finally sells out for $40 or whatever only to show up again in six months. Hard to tell what their strategy is sometimes.

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-world-turned-upside-down.html

>9 dyhtstriyk: Thanks for the laugh, I enjoyed that. Brutally insightful ;-)

I loved reading The Clicking of Cuthbert (and Heart of a Goof), and only have paperbacks, but even I didn't buy the Folio version. Just wasn't very inspiring. Maybe if they'd put the two books together in a little box, and done a more interesting binding I would have been tempted...or was it simply Wodehouse fatigue? Or are the younger generations not into him...starting to go stale? I still find them hilarious...

The discounts would have to be pretty good to make up for the forced (and expensive) express shipping to Germany (plus tax). Considering that there are unlikely to be enough interesting titles I don't have yet and deep enough discounts to be worthwhile with this shipping fee, my hopes for this sale are zero. I understand that this is better for them than the previous deep discounts, but they did make me buy books I otherwise wouldn't have, and were naturally fun from a buyer's point of view. As it is, they usually had one title or so in the last few sales, but with shipping it just wasn't worth it and without a discount, these were titles I wouldn't buy (Kavalier & Klay comes to mind).

>12 SF-72: May I ask what the German tax you refer to is please?

Folio charges the german import VAT of 7% for books sold to germany from outside of the EU.

>4 adriano77:

BINGO--but on the bright side, I've saved a LOT on not having bought anything in the sales for the last several years. Remember those sales when it was buy one multi-volume set and get another one free? That made a huge dent in my wallet (and available bookshelf space).

Whilst past performance is not an indicator of future results, I shall be pleasantly surprised if anything on my potential list is included or reduced more than 15%, which would simply reduce them to their release prices of just a few years ago. I fear that the inclusion of the textual error in the Hitchhiker LE, after so much directional change, fatally damaged my nostalgic respect for FS.

>13 English-bookseller:

As c_schelle said, it's the reduced VAT rate for books that's added to the books and the shipping fee, too. And there's no standard shipping anymore since DHL takes care of said tax for FS, which has made shipping very expensive.

Perhaps a hefty discount will at least allow the Rob Roy LE to quietly vanish into deserved obscurity.

>18 Shadekeep: I doubt it, but I would consider the Thomas Hardy at 50% off :-)

>20 AlexBookshelfFrog:
>21 AlexBookshelfFrog:

I can't speak for you, but the normal way (and the only one I know of) is that FS charge the German VAT during the purchase, on the books and shipping fee, independent of the value of the order. It's definitely shown in one's invoice. Of course that money goes to the German state in the end, but FS does have something to do with that insofar as they charge that tax for Germany. I'm not complaining about that, it's a lot cheaper and less hassle than having to pay it upon arrival in Germany. But those 7% were not added before Brexit, plain and simple. It is a price raise for German buyers compared to the UK prices.

And with the obligatory express shipping (which is also connected to the need to charge / transfer that tax), the shipping fee has about doubled from what it used to be pre-Brexit, too. Add the 7% tax you didn't have to pay before Brexit either, and it's a very big difference to before. If you go back even further (quite a way, admittedly), there was no tax and a 4-Pound shipping fee per book, which meant that it was worthwhile to buy just one or two books in a sale. Not so with a 33-Pound shipping fee for two books (or more), about 6 Pounds less for a single book. The shipping fee is more worthwhile for larger orders (or with very high discounts), but not smaller ones.

It is as it is, but that means that it's highly unlikely that I'll buy anything in sales these days, since shipping and tax make the relatively small discounts we get these days completely unattractive, especially if there aren't a lot of titles one is interested in. As I wrote before, in the past I would try out books I wouldn't otherwise have bought in sales, now I don't since they still end up quite expensive with all this added. It's a pity, but can't be helped. I'm very glad I still enjoyed the days before all this (and the general raise in prices), when trying out a book from FS was quite affordable, while these days I think a lot harder about whether I really 'need' one of their books or not. I'm a lot less open to experimenting.

>23 AlexBookshelfFrog:

The UK doesn't charge a tax on books. The German tax on books is 7% and that's what FS have to charge these days when they sell to Germany, and they also have to add that tax to the shipping fee. Before Brexit, it was just the price for their books as shown on the website plus standard shipping, no tax applied.

DHL wants you to pay the tax / customs fees directly to them only if you haven't paid it to the seller yet. Since FS collect this when Germans buy from them (the tax you mentioned paying), DHL don't charge you anything else. (If they did anyway, that would be a mistake. It happens, though I never had a case with FS and DHL Express.) The advantage is that this way, you only pay the actual (and correct) tax. You don't have to pay any DHL fees they want for charging that tax, and they can't fiddle with the tax rate either. I've had them re-declaring 'regular' books as notebooks so they could charge 19% instead of 7% tax, the same happened to a friend. It's also faster this way.

So based on my own experience, I would say that you did pay VAT when you bought from FS, but thought it was the UK tax, not the German one. But it is since the UK is a country with 0% tax on books. Good for them.

>25 AlexBookshelfFrog:

You're welcome.

I've been buying books etc. abroad for quite a while, it's helpful to know what to expect regarding cost or you can be in for a nasty surprise. In that regard it was really nice to have a source of high-quality books where no customs hassle / fees were involved with the UK, which unfortunately changed due to Brexit. It's made quite a difference in my buying habits, though luckily more and more book sellers are charging the VAT upon purchase. It's really helpful.

Does anyone know or have any idea when the sale will start? As I recall, last year, it was in mid-July, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

>28 AlexBookshelfFrog: Indeed. And if the degree of that badness is reflected in the discount then the Rob Roy LE will be given free to the first 299 sale customers to spend £299 or more in the sale.

>29 cronshaw:

There are some books I have received in the past, that I didn't keep or didn't want, that I would rather have. I wonder if the artist had some dirt on someone in Folio and they blackmailed them into a commission? In this case, the artwork is so intentionally bad, you wonder if it would have been better to pay the artist off rather than to publish the work.

>28 AlexBookshelfFrog: There is a spreadsheet showing what was in past sales as well as other sales info in the FS wiki. They sometimes include a few more popular books in the sales (I seem to remember PKD in recent one) but usually at a small discount.

>27 CJDelDotto: Looks like last year the sale started July 5th but in most years prior it started in the 2nd half of June.

Do I remember correctly that the later sale last year was also connected to the fact that they had a (bungled) pop up sale on London earlier in June?

I didn't recall the sale being bungled, just that it was such a great success it had to end early. Is that what you're referring to?

>33 What_What: yes, that and the fact they had been reassuring everyone there would be stock for both days. And then they offered as a consolation prize a summer sale that was perhaps the worst on record.

Not that I want to make it out as a huge calamity, but I remember some people here being a bit sour about it.

>34 ubiquitousuk:

I'd certainly be sour if I planned a trip to London, buying a train ticket included as some people did, and then have the sale end early. FS clearly underestimated how much interest there would be, I don't even blame them for that, but it is frustrating for those who relied on the second day of the sale, often because they didn't have a choice due to a job etc. This won't ever concern me, not living in the UK, but this went rather badly.

>35 SF-72: It’s a tough one, if a shop runs out of stock, not sure what’s to be done. I guess they could’ve thrown some new LEs into a big box, kicked it around London, and created new dinged LEs to stock the second day. 🤷‍♂️

>36 What_What: Or they could have just kept their mouths shut & not reassured people who asked (which they apparently did) that there would be more than enough stock to cover both days. Some companies actually plan events & if they advertise a 2 day event they actually split their stock & hold stock back specifically for the second day so that customers on both days have equal access to the event. It’s not really rocket science.

>37 antinous_in_london:

Exactly.

To give an example from an online shop that splits their sale of new (and limited) items into two, one for the UK / EU audience and one for the US / Canada (no clue in which of these the rest of the world can buy): They hold these at different times to accommodate the time zones, have separate stock for both, and warn people about limited stock so they know that they risk not getting anything if they try to buy too long after the sale went online. That's fair and transparent.

>37 antinous_in_london: So the people that were going to come in the afternoon on either of those days were going to be screwed anyways. Doesn’t seem like the elegant solution you claim it to be.

>34 ubiquitousuk: I certainly was. Pretty much the only people who ended up benefitting were the retired in London - the most asset-rich class in the country...

My 50% off wish list:

Micrographia
Cook's Journals
Shackleton's Antarctica
Creators, Conquerors & Citizens
Pompeii
Working (the only one likely to happen)
A Perfect Spy
The Color Purple
Mr. Campion and Others

It seems to me if they discounted one of the Bond or George RR Martin books to half price, the OCD collectors would get hooked and have to buy the rest of the series. But, they must be selling well enough without any need to goose the customer.

>39 What_What: Everything is sold on a first come, first served basis anyway - so if a sale starts at 9am & you turn up in the afternoon you already know that a lot of the stock will have already been sold. If someone has been willing to queue since early morning why should someone who turns up 7 hours later in the afternoon have greater access than someone who has been assured the sale will be across both days & has planned to attend the second day & queue early for the privilege.
I have worked for many very high-end brands who hold weekend sample sales several times a year in London - if they say they will hold a 2 day sample sale then they split the stock across the 2 days. Someone who wants to queue on Saturday morning has the same access as someone who wants to queue on a Sunday - they are first come/first served so someone who turns up at 4pm will likely not get much, if anything - which seems right as they have turned up hours after the dedicated masses who queued early for the pleasure.
As the stock is often different on each day some who attend on Saturday may choose to queue again on the Sunday in the hope of acquiring different items. Those lazy folk who choose to turn up on the first afternoon when most of the stock is gone then also have the chance to wake up early & try harder on the second day. Anyone who turns up at 4pm on the second day of a (first come, first served) sample sale has no-one but themselves to blame if there is nothing left - so if they are ‘screwed’ then it is self-inflicted!

Perhaps some of us are also looking at the pop-up sales with a hint of nostalgia. It used to be that you could go to the sale and enjoy the pleasant environs of Laithwaites Wines with fellow collectors, casually browsing the highly-discounted books and picking out a few favourites at your leisure. Then, some time around about when Folio started publishing all this genre stuff, things got a bit ugly. People were showing up with suitcases to fill and jostling in the queue. Folio had to turn some of its staff into ersatz bouncers who looked quite stressed about the problem of crowd control. Laithwaites transformed from genteel wine merchant to mosh pit. You would get elbowed while looking at the books by someone who wanted to cram something else into their suitcase.

The last popup sale must have been even worse because it was post-pandemic and the Facebook group was full of people showing off suitcases full of LEs and other shinies.

Of course, Folio is a business—and good on them for finding buyers for all their stuff. But I think it's still possible to lament the passing of days when those sales were a gentle gathering of like-minded collectors rather than a scrum for the last copy of something Facebook-worthy.

>43 ubiquitousuk: This is it. People are just resistant to change, and will find faults with everything.

>44 What_What: Ahem... inertia.

Looks like the sale is up on the UK site.

The Turn of the Screw will have to do a lot better than £100 off to move I’d think.

Hurray. You can buy most sale books at there standard prices from a few years ago. What a surprise :).

Possibly the worst Folio sale I have encountered. Abysmal.

I'm expecting the Autumn Collection to be something worth looking forward to.

I finally get my Christianity set discount and the total is higher than when I started waiting lol. Almost all these prices are equivalent to the discount codes they give out regularly too so there's not some pressing need to buy either.
>48 AlexBookshelfFrog: Many of the books on sale here have been featured in previous sales. Check the low stock page to find out what's actually close to selling out. Even then, they often "lie" as stock on that page have shot back up or there's reprints. It's an indicator but not a definitive one. Even more confusingly books that have been on sale, sometimes at substantial discount get reprinted and sold at a new higher pricepoint (Essays for instance). Predicting what will sell out is more art than science.

Shockingly bad yet again. One or two at 50% off (all the usual suspects) and the rest are barely discounted enough to surpass or meet what they cost previously before their relentless price increases pushed them beyond their value. Oh well.

What an underwhelming sale. The best deal (to me) is the one on Plants of the Americas, but I have trouble justifying it even at the sale price. Nice to see Rob Roy got a hefty cut, bet it will still be around after though.

Not a lot of titles on sale this time around when you exclude the LEs. A few SE titles on my wish list but I'd need more than a 10% discount to buy at the current prices. I think this is the first sale I've skipped in at least a decade.

Almost all of my non fiction wishlist made the sale, but at only slightly reduced prices. I'm still 100 books away before my ban is lifted, so I can wait until their Winter Sale.

The standout of this sale is Plants of America if that's your sort of thing. It might be the last chance to get it at this price.

>47 assemblyman: This is my sentiment as well. These are for the most part just the corrected prices, not a sale.

My favorite is the barely discounted Eliot LE. Are they aware that Thornwillow produces a half leather, hand bound letterpress Waste Land in a solander box (not illustrated though) for less than their sale price?

Hmmm, slim pickings for me. Will probably save for the Fall catalog.

The usual suspects, except for a couple of noteworthy things (at least for me):

-Wyndham boxed set 10% off. I bought it with the coronation free shipment offer so it was cheaper that way.

-All Hell Let Loose 15% off. As some of you have mentioned, this seems more a correction since I've always thought this set is overpriced. I was planning to use either my birthday coupon or the current magazine one. It will be cheaper this way.

-Get Shorty: such a flop. This is the first time I've seen this book go below its original listed price. IIRC I paid either 35 or 47 pounds for it two years ago.

>55 L.Bloom: If you’re going to compare two books, you really should compare everything. The FS version is much larger in size, vellum bound with 22k stamping, and uses Zerkall mouldmade paper (the Thornwillow doesn’t say on their listing or Kickstarter, which is unusual).

I’m not saying either is clearly superior to the other, just that you’re glossing over other differences.

Also, No Reply Press has an upcoming version; I think they accepted pre-orders a couple years ago. No recent discussion on when that’ll be out.

I'm quite surprised that London & New York doesn't receive more love: I bought it at half price (£195) three years ago and felt a trifle ashamed at having waited for it to be in a sale. There's not very much to read, though, so limited appeal to anyone not seriously enamoured of the Langdon Coburn photogravures.

Disappointing. The only thing that is tempting me is A Bright Shining Lie at 20% off, and maybe Anansi Boys at 15% off. But not sure either is enough to make me pull the trigger.

I had been planning to make an order anyway, so I chucked The Franchise Affair and Shackleton's Boat Journey in the basket as extras.

The levels of discounts offered on most SEs is indeed disappointing (nobody gets out of bed for less than 25%), but the selection of titles on sale was a little better than I expected.

Disappointing as more or less everyone else has said. I purchased Everest on release and in the sale, thanks to recent price increases, it’s actually more expensive!

I’d quite like Working but a £15 discount just isn’t enough. I’d also like the Cook Journals but it’s still over £120 with postage.

Everything else I either own already or am not interested in. Unless I find a code to combine with the sale I doubt I’ll purchase anything.

>60 jsg1976:

I love the Anansi Boys production, one of the best SE from Folio for me. But a 15% discount probably means it was cheaper when first released!

>57 dyhtstriyk: I bought Get Shorty a couple of sales ago. It's a shame it did so poorly because I really like Elmore Leonard. I wonder if it was just the horrid colours and uninspiring artwork of the production that killed interest or if he's that much of a mismatch with the Folio audience.

>64 A.Godhelm:

I bought Get Shorty a couple of sales ago and didn’t like the design or the novel very much. Not a good purchase for me!

Tempted by outlaws of the marsh and a history of Christianity.

I didn't expect Shackleton's Antarctica to be in a sale so I ended up picking it up on eBay last week. £175 so I still saved on the FS express shipping.

>62 pse1: I thought Cook's Journals was one of the better discounts on offer as I think its a few pound cheaper than it's original price (I think it was originally £120). I'd be interested to hear thoughts about this set from anyone who has it.

>67 assemblyman: I thought Cook's Journals was one of the better discounts on offer

I'd recommend it highly, though you have to be prepared for it being a journal. The format can get a little tedious after a while.

>67 assemblyman:

Yes, I’d be interested to hear views of the Cook production.

I bought Shackleton’s Antartica on release - I’m a bit of a Shackleton fan and also bought the LE related replica. I really like the set and think the sale price is slightly cheaper than the original price.

Overall though I think Folio’s prices have risen too much which makes a bit of a mockery of the sale where most reductions are relatively small and then postage has to be added.

>68 folio_books:

Yes, I think I read part of the Journal’s years ago and didn’t find it particularly compelling whereas I found both Scott, and especially Shackleton narratives, far more interesting and readable.

I find it pretty telling that Sharpe clearly was such a flop that all three titles are now in a sale and the series wasn't continued. Being far too stingy with regard to illustrations (too few, black and white) and starting in the chronological instead of the publication order was clearly a mistake. That series should have sold easily, but I had the impression that they treated it as if it would do so automatically, and that went quite wrong.

>66 Geo135: I thought MacCulloch did a great job on that book breathing life into what can be a very wooden topic by looking both at the theological battles and the consequent historical impact they had. Didn't overlook the early centuries trying to cement doctrine, or the early schism (often neglected in favour of catholic bias and reformation focus). Looking forward to re-read it and I'm chasing down his other FS published book on the Reformation.
>71 SF-72: I like Sharpe but dipped out of that series for the reasons you mentioned plus an envelope calculation on how much an entire set would be. In retrospect it's amazing they got the entire Aubrey-Maturin series published. And Hornblower was complete too?

Been waiting for Stasiland to go on sale for years. Funnily enough, it's now discounted down to the full price it was originally when I started waiting.

>73 adriano77: my take home message from this sale is that it’s cheaper to buy the books when first released than wait for a sale 3-4 years down the line where even at ‘sale’ prices they are still more expensive than when originally released.

>66 Geo135: Outlaws of the Marsh is great, I can recommend this edition, though the savings in the sale are rather paltry. It's a better buy in the US with a 20% coupon and free shipping, if that combo comes around again.

>74 Juniper_tree:

Pretty much. It wasn't even an expensive book to begin with (originally $59.95 CAD), but I always thought it a likely near-term sales candidate. Little did I know it'd be hit with four separate price hikes...

>64 A.Godhelm: It is stylistically jarring from what one usually expects from a FS release (or at least used to). Not sure that a Richard Belzer look-alike is a big sales motivator, either.

>75 Shadekeep: also A Hero Born is on sale. You can bundle it with Outlaws, despite being from different time periods.

Bad luck with A Hero Born likely not having its sequels published... the first book ends in a cliffhanger.

>62 pse1: I purchased Working in a previous sale for £47.50 - it now has a ‘sale’ price of £60. As many have said a lot of these prices aren’t particularly appealing & are higher than in previous sales & in some cases higher than the original standard selling prices.

>74 Juniper_tree: Or more accurately buy them 6 months after the original release so you can use one of the many 10% off codes (which cant be used on brand new releases).

>78 dyhtstriyk: Aye, that ideally should have been printed in one go as a set. I don't buy volumes like that anymore until the whole set is done, as I hate feeling a chump when they discontinue the run.

Nothing here for me. Prices too high, no titles I want or ones that I already have. Save and hope for something decent in the fall catalogue.

What does this august group of Folio Society Devotees think of these items from the Summer Sale?

---

Anansi Boys: £72.25 (discounted from £85.00)

A Bright Shining Lie: £116.00 (discounted from £145.00)

Around the World in Eighty Days: £40.75 (discounted from £47.95)

Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949: £166.50 (discounted from £185.00)

Waiting for Godot: £48.00 (discounted from £60.00)

Italian Folktales: £131.75 (discounted from £155.00)

Sophie’s World: £42.00 (discounted from £60.00)

---

Which of these are bargains vs. traps for a fellow bibliophile? :-D

Your advice would be much appreciated!

>81 cronshaw: This comment lit up my day! :-D

>84 AlexBookshelfFrog: sorry, I meant the other three parts of the original first novel. What Folio published is just the first part. It's enjoyable enough, but the main plot won't be resolved.

>79 antinous_in_london:

I think then if you paid £47.50 in an earlier sale I’ll resist the current ‘sale’ price of £60 now. It happens to be one of the books on my wish list but only at a discounted price. £60 isn’t really a discount!

Underwhelmed by the sale, and FS has ignored my birthday!

I'm beginning to suspect that FS only sees me as an account number ......

During the 2021 Summer Sale, each of the Tey books was $35.95 in the US. There were a lot of positive comments on FSD about those prices then. Four of the Tey books are now on sale for $35.00.

>55 L.Bloom: Excellent point! The Thornwillow edition is $1170 which as you pointed out is still LESS than the discounted FS edition... crazy.

A list of all books and prices in previous sales can be found on the FSD wiki at https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Groups:Folio_Society_Devotees#Does_the_F...

I’m pleased with a few of the offerings but the discounts are just so slim. $35-40 off a $200+ title just isn’t enough for me to pull the trigger.

There are a few things that are tempting (History of Christianity, The Living Mountain, A Shining White Lie), but wouldn’t save much after shipping to Canada, so probably not. Plus I’ve already blown my June book budget.

>85 bookaroo: Only Italian Folktales from your list personally appeals to me. Had the Pantheon edition back in college, excellent stuff. Not a significant discount, but on the flipside, it's also worth the base price.

>90 cpg: It's still a good price for these books, which I have and recommend to anyone who likes golden age mysteries. Given how often they've been in sales, though, I'd wager most folks in this group already have them if they wanted them which explains the lack of enthusiasm.

>84 AlexBookshelfFrog:

What you mean is a prequel - a story set before another one. Sequels are stories following another one. In this case, we get a third of the story and the book ends on a cliffhanger. I didn't know that or I wouldn't have bought it. You can get regular paperbacks or ebooks to complete the series, but I find that rather frustrating.

>85 bookaroo:

Anansi Boys is really well made with regard to the illustrations, edges and slipcase. It's both a visual and a tactile pleasure. Personally, I also like the story, which has a lot of humour. It is fantasy, so maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but it's actually one of my favourite novels by Neil Gaiman.

Italian Folktales is a set of very high quality, cloth bound with a sturdy slipcase. I haven't read it yet, but would say this one would depend on whether you like story collections or not.

With Around the World in Eighty Days, I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more with regard to illustrations, and most of those were rather small. Still, it's creatively done with the map.

Best at this point not to even think about the old 50% off summer sales. The bank account breathes easy tonight.

The Living Mountain is highly recommended, by me at least. I'm finally hoping to spring for the Wilfred Owen - 35 pounds postage (to Germany) is still expensive, but down from what it used to be (60 was it?). Otherwise, nothing jumps out...

>89 Amarisy: Underwhelmed by the sale, and FS has ignored my birthday!

and mine - which has not made me happy given what I've spent over the past year.

Another underwhelming sale. A 10% off sale price is kind of insulting when their prices have gone up by 20% or more over the last few years.

Any thoughts on The Tudor Age?

The Wyndham collection I got in a previous sale for AUD $66.95 and now it is on sale at AUD $243.00

Makes me miss the old sales. Only significant discounts I see are for books that Folio has been trying to move for years and years.

Are there any current promo codes that stack on top of the sale?

Another sale, another meh. The great sales of the past are gone, which to me shows that Folio is doing a better job.

Anyone with the Hornblower boxed set? I just saw that it is clothbound and, at 81 pounds for four books seems tempting. I've only read The Happy Return (on audio) and thought it slightly more lively and accesible than Master and Commander. Are the rest of the books (in this set) any good?

>103 emgcat: Marrying a king wasn't always a good career move.

>105 MobyRichard: Indeed, it's telling that Folio have now dropped the percentage discount indicators.

>69 pse1:
I bought Shackleton’s Antartica on release - I’m a bit of a Shackleton fan and also bought the LE related replica. I really like the set and think the sale price is slightly cheaper than the original price.
Indeed: I bought it on it being listed in December 2021 for £195, so now being sold at a 'generous' £10 discount, £9 when delivery taken into account.
Examining my order history, I see that, for the first time since I joined in 1989, I have just passed the one year mark since I last bought direct from the FS. This sale is definitely not going to change that; the last sale in which I found anything I wanted was in Summer 2021 (Tommy at £42).

I never thought any Gaiman editions would get a discount so seemed like a good excuse to pull the trigger and looks like a lot of effort was put into this edition.

>111 Willoyd: the last sale in which I found anything I wanted was in Summer 2021 (Tommy at £42).

You was done! I paid £22.50 in the New Year 2019 Sale :-)

And no, I won't be getting anything from the current rather pathetic sale :-(

>114 AlexBookshelfFrog:

I think they made a mistake not publishing the whole story as a set. I'm sure it would have sold better than this one volume. As it is, too many people avoided this book since they didn't trust FS to publish the rest of the story, and that's promptly what happened.

I’m tempted by A History of Christianity as it’s clearly not getting any cheaper.

It is frustrating that the discounted price is more than the original price, but that’s just the inflation environment the world has been in for the past 2 years.

>109 cronshaw:

:)

Apologies for the multiple messages. Is anyone aware of any active discount codes? I saw in another thread that there may be an active discount code in the newest magazine. Thanks in advance.

>108 dyhtstriyk: I have two of the Hornblower sets. I though they were ok (but not amazing), worse than the earlier Master and Commander books (but better than the final M&C works!)

>113 RogerBlake:
You was done! I paid £22.50 in the New Year 2019 Sale :-)
Brilliant! That's a cracking price for an excellent production. I was (and am) happy enough with what I paid given that quality. I'm never quite sure why FS sale prices do have a habit of going up - I've bought several books cheaper than they were offered in subsequent sales.

I was eyeing anansi boys and was surprised it was included. I already got a copy of oryx and crake secondhand. Used a $20 code. Only way it made sense. Otherwise this sale is worse than 10% plus free shipping.

>118 icewindraider: Yesterday evening, I used the code TMAG4 which stacked with the sale discounts and gave an additional 10% off. Sometimes the coupons are region-dependent (I'm in the UK), but it's worth a go.

>122 GardenOfForkingPaths: It worked for me as well. I caved and ordered the Hornblower set. Doesn't seem to apply to LEs.

>108 dyhtstriyk: Thanks for mentioning it. I somehow skimmed past it the first go through. So 55% off is not bad at all. Anyone interested in it might want to act as there seems to only be 122 sets left.

I was going to order Micrographia as well, but I think that will last at least until the winter sale when I won't be so guilt ridden.

So I had done the math and it wasn’t worth ordering the books I wanted with the discounts given that I could prob order later with a 10% off code and save shipping by bundling with one of the upcoming collections. Then I got the 10% code, so ordered even though it means that I won’t be able to buy books for a while…saved about $100CAD though!

The History of Christianity
All Hell Let Loose
The Living Mountain

All books that I have wanted for a while!

>108 dyhtstriyk: Hornblower is good reading for literate teenagers: Patrick O'Brian is for educated adults.

>124 RRCBS: What is the 10% code? Thanks.

Does anyone else feel a tension between wanting to get the best deal possible and wanting FS to thrive?

>122 GardenOfForkingPaths: Many thanks for that - I was prevaricating on this sale as nothing I am interested in (or do not already have) was being offered at more than 20% off, but somehow 28% feels to be so much better than 20%, so I have gone ahead and ordered several things.

>127 cpg: No. Even at sales or sales-plus prices, they’ll still be making a profit or clearing stockroom space for greater efficiency, particularly given the steep price rises over the past few years. Their Gavron-subsidised days when form and content mattered over profit, while quietly perusing books in the Eagle St members’ room, are long over.

>129 cwl: Unfortunately, I concur. At least Folio had decades of great years with creative and interesting titles with their biannual sale being one of the most exciting times of my book buying year. Now the sale is meh and borderline insulting to the customer on what is on sale and how little the discounts are.

But, at least Folio did have many golden years with Letterpress Shakespeare being my absolute favorite production.

>131 Joshbooks1:

Yes. The modernised text ends my interest in the Letterpress Shakespeare, but I treasure a host of other LEs from the Kelmscott Chaucer facsimile to Aurora Australis: the latter and the boxed Shackleton set have been my only purchases since picking up Candide and Parade's End in the summer sale three years ago. Maybe the three-volume sets of Montaigne and Robert Burton are my favourite standard Folio productions, as each is the finest edition I have of a text from which I'll never willingly be parted.

(Quick edit there to correct an accidental and false claim to have picked up Candida in the 2020 sale...)

>127 cpg:

Nope. Don't get me wrong, I want FS to thrive, but I have more than enough books to read that I'll never finish before I die. I have no problem curtailing my spending on unncessary books, especially when they cost a lot.

>52 Shadekeep: 'Nice to see Rob Roy got a hefty cut, bet it will still be around after though.'

Yup. That's how the majority sees it. Me, I like her work. I understand her inability to belong. I share the difficulty in understanding other people.

I like Rob Roy :-)

I just bought Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History Of Christianity in the Sale. I hadn’t bought a book direct from Folio Society in a year and a half and was about to lose my Devotees membership card! I could stack the voucher code on top of the Sale price, which meant the tax was taken care of. Looking forward to the box set, it will go nicely with the Reformation box set I bought years ago.

>131 Joshbooks1:
At least Folio had decades of great years with creative and interesting titles
I think it's the lack of those that is the main problem for me now, even more than the prices! Having said that, it's good to see them do more good American literature (even if can't afford new copies to replace my incumbent editions: already have most of them through Library of America having given up on FS producing them a while ago), whilst the occasional travel/exploration title has seen the odd cut-through for me (my only titles direct from FS in the past 2-3 years have been Chaikin, Shackleton and Bell).

>135 NLNils:
I hadn’t bought a book direct from Folio Society in a year and a half and was about to lose my Devotees membership card!
I'm approaching that point, but won't be giving mine up: have bought enough on the secondary market during that time to more than justify membership IMO.

>131 Joshbooks1: The same set that was such a financial failure they had to vastly reduce the number they planned to publish?

In a post earlier this year:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/339130#8127936

CobbsGhost shared the FS’ revenue, cost of goods and profit. Here’s what the last eleven years looked like:

2012- 21,488,272 (5,370,712) (11,012)
2013- 19,294,269 (5,728,209) (2,757,515)
2014- 14,763,069 (5,152,487) 27,740
2015- 11,640,615 (4,316,407) (1,536,787)
2016- 10,321,394 (3,697,406) (357,980)
2017- 10,002,806 (4,029,162) *7,979,171
2018- 09,961,373 (3,349,030) (320,497)
2019- 10,229,735 (3,480,521) (213,242)
2020- 11,549,967 (3,714,252) 285,882
2021- 13,570,898 (4,180,729) 2,725,569
2022- 15,261,467 (4,887,286) 1,498,744

Of the eleven years, they only started making a profit in 2020 (we’ll call the 20k in 2014 breaking even, and the 2017 8m profit was actually a 3m loss subsidized by the one-time sale of the building).

During the pandemic years, pre-inflation and when a considerable portion of the middle class was drowning in cash, they did well - 2020 eeked out a small profit, and the next two years the factors I mentioned resulted in large profits.

But back to the point about conflict between good sales and wanting them to survive. Whatever the glory years were, it’s clear the Folio Society had to massive change direction or there wouldn’t be any Folio Society at all.

It’ll be interesting to see what their financials are for 2023, considering the large inflationary costs they also had to sustain, rising interest rates, and until very recently, poorly-performing stock markets.

>137 What_What: I've think we've had this discussion before, but, again, financial success doesn't equate quality. I'm not trying to attack what people read but it's apparent Folio's business model now is to maximize profit. The majority of their new titles now are either based on a TV show or movie, popular fiction, anything Gaiman or King, with a lot of their literary fiction being authors like McCarthy and Murakami - although good they hardly are outside-the-box selections. Also, their recent LEs are insultingly overpriced which goes to show they now have no qualms taking advantage of their customer base.

If I had to guess the reason for The Letterpress Shakespeare disappointing sales, it is because of the initial high limitation and Shakespeare, unfortunately, isn't as popular as say Herbert or Adams. I own nearly all of their older Folio LEs (I stopped buying most of them around 2 years ago,) and without question Letterpress Shakespeare is one of the best that Folio has ever done. Just look at the 'new' Shakespeare LE - it looks gaudy and like it was meant for pinterest, instagram or facebook. But it will look cool on people's bookshelves, untouched for decades. And I'm also biting at the bit to see what gimmick comes with this set. Maybe a pen or feather? Also, how many more rehashing of LEs are we going to get?

In short, Folio has clearly taken the more capitalistic/financial road as of late. For me it is highly disappointing but other people continue to buy their products and if that makes them happy, good. But, they didn't have to take that road. Everyone keeps saying, as you do, they would have gone out of business. Maybe, maybe not, but they have stayed afloat for decades with their prior business model. They could have continued to barely scrape by and produce creative quality works which they have for decades before. I think it is fair to say publishers like Foolscap and Barbarian are the antithesis of Folio - they both make some of the most beautiful books out there, are very creative with their content and all at very reasonable prices. Give me the Herman Melville type whose writing changed from his early flashy popular books to the ones later on in life with deep spiritual meaning. Sure, by doing so he ended up dying a pauper but if he continued his early course no one would have remembered his name. Money isn't everything.

>138 Joshbooks1: I understand your perspective entirely. While the immediate financial gain may seem appealing, it’s evident that the brand is feeling the strain.

Additionally, these embellishments and ornate packaging are simply unnecessary, creating a surplus cost in production that’s inevitably passed on to the consumer. If I wanted a library with fancy engineered boxes I’d start a magic tricks collection.

Edit: On that note, I’m wondering whether the lack of a towel, considering the less-than-ideal alternative of a “used” towel, will impact the price of the Hitchhiker LE on the secondary market :)

>138 Joshbooks1: "But, they didn't have to take that road. They could have continued to barely scrape by and produce creative quality works which they have for decades before."

With the greatest respect, I think you ignoring reality here. As What_What has pointed out, FS were making a substantial loss throughout the 2010s. And that is before you take into account their subsidised use of a highly desirable property in central London. There is no way on earth that they could have continued under that business model.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't The Folio Society, back in the good ol' days when they didn't care about making money, require members to buy at least 4 books a year? Speaking of taking advantage of one's own customer base ... And didn't one have to be a member before being able to order any books? From my perspective, FS hasn't morphed into a capitalist pig, just a better-run business.

With all due respect to the capitalism model, I wish more publishers would follow Library of America’s nonprofit model. It has been very successful even if it hasn’t made its managers wealthy, and isn’t an educated populace the lynchpin of democracy?

>139 bacchus.: Haha funny you mentioned that. That actually crossed my mind a few weeks ago. Also what do you do with said towel? Is it verboten to actually use it? Do you bring it to the beach? frame it? Show it off to your friends and family? It's a question only for the great philosophers!

>140 TheEconomist: But I'm not ignoring reality. Comments for months to years always point out that Folio was doomed and what we have now is the only reality. There were many other paths Folio could have taken than the one they chose. They chose the monetary path to mainly focus on extremely popular titles with steep increases in prices, with their LE pricing nearly laughable, especially for those who are non-UK residents. I'm not bashing or insulting other readers and their tastes - the books that they are selling now are popular for a reason. It's just the exact opposite of what Folio was for decades.

>143 Joshbooks1: Yes, it’s the opposite of what they did because otherwise they’d have gone bankrupt. How long could a company survive sustaining such huge losses? Selling the building was probably their last resort, and made them realize something had to drastically change.

“Everyone keeps saying, as you do, they would have gone out of business. Maybe, maybe not, but they have stayed afloat for decades with their prior business model.”

See above.

“They could have continued to barely scrape by and produce creative quality works which they have for decades before.”

Nobody runs a business to barely scrape by. And the Letterpress Shakespeare (which are beautiful) are the perfect example of how a business can go broke making a beautiful thing not enough people want. At least they had the good sense to put a halt to it.

“I think it is fair to say publishers like Foolscap and Barbarian are the antithesis of Folio - they both make some of the most beautiful books out there, are very creative with their content and all at very reasonable prices.”

They are also four people in total, and don’t have to deal with anything near the scale and complexity of the Folio Society.

>141 AMindForeverVoyaging: I must confess, as an erstwhile member of FS, I never felt required to buy anything.

There were years where other financial matters took precedence and I lapsed my membership. Then I could rejoin, lured by delectable offers. I don't remember which year I purchased what - but I will always remember, on collecting my books from Holborn, Mr Whitlock Blundell taking one look at my order, smiling, and telling me that he will double bag the books.

The business model today is different - I still buy - probably from nostalgia, if I'm honest.

edited to reverse surname - clearly I shouldn't post after being out in the sun for hours.

>134 Cat_of_Ulthar: And you are perfectly welcome to! I don't think the art is intrinsically bad when you view an individual piece. Rather, it's the effect in toto in this work, which is that nearly everyone seems to be the same person. It's very jarring and takes one out of the experience, at least for me.

>137 What_What:
I would note, that around the time Folio went off the rails in the number of books published is when they started losing money. That was 2007, for 08, that they went from steady profit to failing. They have returned to the 50 title range which seems consistent with the 'glory years'. Folio got too big for their britches.

>144 What_What: But, again, you are evading specifics to fit your narrative. Folio didn't have to become a publisher that now makes millions every year to line the pockets of their staff at the expense of the customer. Limited Edition prices now pretty much just tell their base that they don't mind completely hosing them so they can maximize profit instead of setting a fair price so both parties are happy. I can't think of a current publisher that has such inflated prices for what you get - it makes Arion seem like a bargain.

And, again, not every company tries to make as much money as possible. Sure, most sell out but there are others that have integrity. You make it seem as if since one thing happened the final result was obvious. Folio could have gone down many other paths but instead chose to do the easiest and most typical one in which they just pick extremely popular books and sell them at all time premiums.

I'm negative about Folio because they got me into collecting premium books and I was obsessed with them for nearly a decade. I loved their product, especially their Limited Editions, and I had no qualms supporting their company. Now I haven't bought directly from them for >2 L.Bloom: years and really have no plans to do so. I was excited for Beowulf but looking at the teaser shows how much Folio has changed. How could such a small volume not be letterpress? Instead, they have a minute video that looks like a video game, with the book only in the last ten seconds, and the picture we get of the book looks like it will have loads of cool and flashy illustrations. We're talking about a book written in the 10th century, not Philip K. Dick. I'm sure people on Facebook will rave about it though. So it goes.

>148 Joshbooks1: All this debate about the change in FS strategy is very interesting to me. I started collecting in 2016, just at the time everything was changing. I even managed to visit the Eagle Street store six months before they closed it. I have a hard time understanding what was so different about the society back then that is making so many people here complain. I've bought most of my FS collection new in the past two years, but I've also purchased a lot of pre-2016 books in the secondary market and I'm really struggling to see a big difference. 19th and 20th century classics, golden age crime, adventure novels, travelogues, history books, fantasy. They are all pre-2016, and they all have equivalents in the newer collections. The only new things I have seen eyebrow-rising are decisions like publishing Lee Child, but it shows that it wasn't a winning bet with them now in the sale.

Of course I only buy SEs. A couple of recent LEs are, IMO, cash grabs (such as the Dune or the Hitchhiker ones), but others are not (the Thucydides, the Book of the New Sun) or are overpriced or risky gems (LOTR and Gormenghast). Either way I see it as a very varied strategy with some questionable decisions, but not an overall trend.

>149 dyhtstriyk: It’s a combination of cutting corners on production (eg textual errors, paper-covered boards, far less use of Nigerian leather, gaudy design, the branding decision to use the colophon regardless of overall design) coupled with massive price increases. Certainly, some of the newer editions would be at home in the older catalogues. But, the flagship LE program has become an exercise in cynicism and profiteering. The end of the Whitlock Blundell LE choice and design spelled the end of an era in terms of objective quality. Yes, there were mistakes (Bayeaux and the vastly over optimistic run for Temple of Flora, the Pomona, or less-popular titles in the letterpress Shakespeare spring immediately to mind), but no one at that time debated the production values and care behind the books themselves. We all know the reasons why, but there can be no debate that focus has changed. For some of us, that change has left the distaste seen on the forum over the past couple of years. I was on the fence about this for some time, as change did have to occur, but allowing known errors into the Hitchhiker’s LE was a turning point. The FS as I understood it is now gone, certainly from a management perspective. The FS has been through a few iterations of itself over the past 75 years, but it must have the books at the heart of its business, and there is apprehension that this is not currently happening.

The limited editions and the people who flip them just leave a horrible taste in my mouth. But the same is true of many other publishers.

>148 Joshbooks1: I stopped reading at “line the pockets of their staff at the expense of their customers.”

>150 cwl:

Was the Pomona a mistake? Stocks took five years to clear, which used to be par for the course - I don't think Moby Dick went much faster - and it featured in a sale or two, but I've heard no concrete suggestion that the 980 copies weren't all bound up and sold, and the only sub-£600 offer on ABE now is a scuffed copy in New Zealand. I'm biased, of course, as an early purchaser who had known little about apples or pears beyond how to eat them.

>153 terebinth: There were definitely question marks over it on release, being a rather hyper-specialist publication, even for gardeners here in the UK, despite its eventual sellout. I say this as a keen appreciator of historic florigelia and tulip paintings. It was more a case of why this, out of anything they could have chosen for facsimile? The Pomona was very well done.

I would hazard a guess that many people buying folio society books are not just "scraping by." To suggest that someone should scrape by so luxury goods are more accessible seems kind of absurd. I have worked for a non profit. I made a living wage, sure. Not a Folio LE purchasing wage though. It's not like Folio is the sole way to access these books in some shape or form.

>155 PrestigeWorldWide: totally agree!

Edit to say, well put. Was thinking of saying something similar myself but didn’t want to come off as judgemental.

>155 PrestigeWorldWide: >156 RRCBS:
To suggest that someone should scrape by so luxury goods are more accessible seems kind of absurd.
And yet, that is exactly the premise upon which Folio Society was set up - to produce "editions of the world's great literature in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of everyman".

>149 dyhtstriyk:
I have a hard time understanding what was so different about the society back then that is making so many people here complain....but I've also purchased a lot of pre-2016 books in the secondary market and I'm really struggling to see a big difference. 19th and 20th century classics, golden age crime, adventure novels, travelogues, history books, fantasy. They are all pre-2016, and they all have equivalents in the newer collections.
Pretty much everything they publish now is pretty 'mainstream' (inevitably - it's about maximising profit). For the classics, for instance, they cherry pick authors, and pretty much only publish books they've published before, and presumably are strong sellers. You may not see a difference, but I used to buy anything between 25 and 40 books a year direct (about 50/50 non-fiction and fiction); in the past 2 years I've bought 3 books/sets; I've bought just 4 fiction in the past 5 years. Now some of that is down to the price increases, but those 3 books/sets include the not cheap Chaikin and Shackleton. I'm still buying FS, as there remains much of interest in the back catalogue, but just not from them any more.

>157 Willoyd: I hear you, but you think that means employees there should scrape by so that others can have LEs at a reasonable price?

>157 Willoyd:

"editions of the world's great literature in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of everyman"

Interesting you bring up Charles Ede's famous quote.There was a time when Folio themselves used it repeatedly in their prospectuses, catalogues, magazines, all of their marketing materials, website and their bibliography. Soon after abandoning their membership model, Folio did a little bit of Orwellian editing with the quote (a la Animal Farm) before removing it entirely from their website. Now there is no trace of Charles Ede's vision of The Folio Society.

When Folio abandoned the quote, they abandoned those values too, which is what we see today. Folio couldn't use the quote as their mission statement these days anyway, it would be untrue and misleading.

As for profitability, sure I want them to be profitable and to prosper, but actually, I truly believe they are just greedy and are happy to screw me every time I buy a book from them (not so often these days).

I’m in the camp of still buying. I like the Charles Ede concept, but there are still companies like Everyman’s Library and Library of America producing good quality affordable books. I would love it if they increased their output. To me, FS LEs are mainly for collectors, especially since they’ve taken to doing works they’ve already done SEs of or ones that are available elsewhere.

>139 bacchus.: ' If I wanted a library with fancy engineered boxes I’d start a magic tricks collection.'

Just off to set fire to my lovely silk-lined wooden box in which I got my beautiful Fairy Queen LE, because it's just a gimmick?

It's time we heard no more of Charles Ede's everyman. His first books were produced at about 15/- (£0.75) when the average wage for a man was a little over £7. In 2022 the average wage for a man was £813, and a book taking a similar proportion of his wage to Ede's 1947 offering would cost between £80 and £90. The same calculation for a woman would lead to a 2022 figure of over £120. In practice, Ede's books were even less affordable than these figures suggest for someone on average wages, as the proportion of wages spent on the essentials of food, shelter and clothing was much higher in those years, and the amount of discretionary spending correspondingly less.

>160 RRCBS: I think that Everyman is interesting because they are changing their titles selection and becoming more international (less British, though I wish they would publish the remaining two Palliser novels by Trollope to finish that series) and yet there is no drop in quality. Whereas with the FS some of the more recent publications are popular though are of dubious literary quality

Does anyone have Bomber Command and can comment on the production, etc.? Thanks.

>159 bookfair_e: 'Soon after abandoning their membership model, Folio did a little bit of Orwellian editing with the quote (a la Animal Farm) before removing it entirely from their website. Now there is no trace of Charles Ede's vision of The Folio Society.'

What is Orwellian about that? The business changed its model, they changed the 'mission statement'. I don't see anything dishonest there, they just don't operate in the same way that they used to. If they were still claiming to operate under Ede's model, you would have a point but I checked Folio's webste and, as you yourself say, they're not using the quote any more.

We can like that or not but ultimately it's up to Folio what they publish and up to you or I whether we are willing to buy it or not.

>157 Willoyd:

The title selection is only frustrating for those of us that do not enjoy modern works. The range is still there for the most part. One frustrating outcome is that Folio even seems to publish pop-classics (the many times over published and 'top 100 type' histories) or cultural works they can sell to those interested in diversifying the appearance of their library.

The biggest difference I see in moneymaking, is actually a sweet spot between making too many and making too few books. The price hike and reduction in titles has been the biggest reason Folio is making more profit. That will fade when the materialists find a new hobby and the readers have found a new publisher.

Overall, Folio just costs more and seeks to survive. I think I'm seeing this false premise of workers not making a living wage, they have started outsourcing many things (I think even customer service or sales at times).

List of titles for the heading years below, each ten years until today.

1953:
As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Eastern Love Poems. Translated by Powys Mathers
Eugenie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac
History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, The by Henry Fielding
In the Beginning by Norman Douglas
Lancelot & Guinevere, edited from Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur
Louis XIV at Versailles, a selection from the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon
Plain or Ringlets by R.S. Surtees
Two Tales - The Royal Slave & The Fair Jilt by Mrs. Aphra Behn
Young King, The and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde

1963:
A Shameful Revenge and other stories by Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor
All’s Well that Ends Well by William Shakespeare
At the Court of the Borgia, Johann Burchard
Confessions of an English Opium Eater, The by Thomas de Quincy
Essays by Charles Lamb
Expedition to Surinam by Captain John Gabriel Stedman
John Evelyn’s Diary
My Life on the Plains by General G.A. Custer
Paintings, Drawings and Etchings by Rembrandt van Rijn. Selected and intro by Nigel Lambourne
Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poems of Love by John Donne
Shorter Works by Jane Austen
Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Trial of Charles I, The; From the Memoirs of Sir Thomas Herbert and John Rushworth
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Washington Square by Henry James

1973:
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Bayeux Tapestry and the Norman Invasion, The
Beowulf, translated by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Compleat Angler, The by Izaak Walton
Discovery of Tahiti, The by George Robertson
Ghost Stories of M. R. James
Gunpowder Plot, The, The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond
History of the War in the Peninsula by Major General Sir William Napier
Howards End by E.M. Forster
Letters to his Son by Philip Stanhope, Fourth Earl of Chesterfield
Life and Death of King John, The, by William Shakespeare
London 1851, The Year of the Great Exhibition
Nana by Emile Zola
Oregon Trail, The, by Francis Parkman
Our Life in the Highlands by Queen Victoria
Poems by P.B. Shelley
Spanish Bawd, The, by Fernando de Rojas
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Universal Spider, The, by Philippe de Commynes
Wolsey - His Life and Death

1983:
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
A Pedestrian Journey Through Russia and Siberian Tartary by Captain John Dundas Cochrane
A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe
Ask Mamma by Surtees
Blessington-d’Orsay by Michael Sadleir
Childhood, Youth and Exile by Alexander Herzen
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire I, The History of the by Gibbon
Fire of Liberty, The
Handley Cross by Surtees
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
History of Myddle, The, by Richard Gough
Lisle Letters, The. Edited by Muriel St.Clare Byrne
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Pan, From Lieutenant Thomas Glahn's Papers by Knut Hamsun
Short Stories by P.G. Wodehouse
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli
Wreck of the Wager, The, by John Bulkeley and John Byron

1993:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The, by Mark Twain
Adventures of the Treasure Seekers, The, by E. Nesbit (3v.)
Aeneid by Virgil. Translated by John Dryden
Age of Scandal, The: An Excursion Through a Minor Period by T.H. White
Alice B. Toklas Cookbook
An Eye for an Eye by Anthony Trollope
Art of Love, The, by Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid)
Bertrams, The, by Anthony Trollope
Chinggis Khan, The Golden History of the Mongols
Complete Memoirs of George Sherston by Siegfried Sassoon (3v.)
Complete Short Stories of Sherlock Holmes
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Confessions, St Augustine of Hippo
Cousin Henry by Anthony Trollope
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Five Novels by Thomas Hardy (5v.)
Garden and Other Poems, The, by Andrew Marvell
Grand Quarrel, The: Selections from the Civil War Memoirs
Grand Tour 1592-1796, The, Edited by Roger Hudson
History of England, The, by Jane Austen
Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari (3v.)
Loved One, The; An Anglo-American Tragedy by Evelyn Waugh
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
Necklace & Other Stories, The, by Guy de Maupassant. Re-issue of 1959 edition
Newgate Calendars, The. (2v.) 1. Newgate Calendar, The
Novels of Ingenuity by Thomas Hardy (3v.)
Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
Palliser Novels, The by Anthony Trollope Volumes 4-6. (3v.)
Source of the Nile, The, The Lake Regions of Central Africa by Richard F. Burton
Works by Oscar Wilde (3v.)

2003:
A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens
A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill. (4v.)
A History of the Indians of the United States by Angie Debo
Adventures of Richard Hannay, The by John Buchan. (5v.)
An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad
Arabian Nights, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night
Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire: The Frankish Invasion 744-774 by Thomas Hodgkin
Best After-Dinner Stories, The. Introduced by Tim Heald
Blue Fairy Book, The. Compiled by Andrew Lang
Byzantium by John Julius Norwich. (3v.)
Cities and Civilisations by Christopher Hibbert
Complete Hercule Poirot Short Stories, The by Agatha Christie
Culloden by John Prebble
Domesday Book. (3v.)
Dubliners by James Joyce
Ethics by Aristotle
Glencoe by John Prebble
Great Fire of London in 1666, The by Walter George Bell
Greenmantle by John Buchan
Highland Clearances, The by John Prebble
In Flanders Field - The 1917 Campaign by Leon Wolff
India, A History by John Keay. (2v.)
Jane Austen’s Letters
Letters From a Stoic and Three Dialogues
Life of Muhammad, The; Apostle of Allah by Ibn Ishaq
Memoirs of a British Agent by R.H.Bruce Lockhart
Miss Marple Short Stories, The by Agatha Christie
Myths and Legends of the Ancient Near East
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
On the Good Life by Cicero
On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
Ottoman Empire, The by Lord Kinross
Republic by Plato
Rescue, The; A Romance of the Shallows by Joseph Conrad
Satyrica by Petronius Arbiter
Secret Sharer and Other Stories, The by Joseph Conrad
Selected Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
Trial of the Templars, The by Malcolm Barber
Voyage of the HMS Beagle, The:

2013:
A Circle in the Fire and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
A History of Japan by Conrad Totman
A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes
A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie
Alexander Trilogy, The by Mary Renault
An Expression of the American Mind by Thomas Jefferson
Baburnama by Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur
Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks
Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Classical World, The by Robin Lane Fox
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Conrad’s Congo by Joseph Conrad
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei
Drowned World, The by J G Ballard
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Fall of Constantinople 1453, The by Steven Runciman
Girls of Slender Means, The by Muriel Spark
God’s Englishman, Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution by Christopher Hill
Great Gatsby, The by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Railway Bazaar, The by Paul Theroux
Grey Fairy Book, The
Hundred Days, The by Patrick O'Brian
Landscape into Art by Kenneth Clark
Little White Horse, The by Elizabeth Goudge
Lord Byron: Selected Poems
Loving by Henry Green
Miss Marple Novels by Agatha Christie. (4v.)
Mohammed and Charlemagne by Henri Pirenne
Once There Was a War by John Steinbeck
Orange Fairy Book, The. Compiled by Andrew Lang
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Owl Service, The by Alan Garner
Peter Pan and Wendy by J.M.Barrie
Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town by Mary Beard
Prehistory, The Making of the Human Mind by Colin Renfrew
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Princess and the Goblin, The by George MacDonald
Princess Bride, The by William Goldman
Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, The by Walter Pater
Rise of Rome, The by Polybius
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Selfish Giant and Other Stories, The by Oscar Wilde
Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen. Introduced by Margaret Atwood
Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence
Structures: or Why Things Don’t Fall Down by J. E. Gordon
Three Kingdoms. AD 168 to 280. (4v.)
Tiger in the Smoke, The by Margery Allingham
Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, The
Tomb of Tutankhamun, The by Howard Carter. (2v.)
Yellow Admiral, The by Patrick O'Brian

2023:
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
Doctor Strange – Marvel Comics
Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Innocents Abroad, The by Mark Twain
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Monkey by Wu Ch’eng-en. New edition
Old Patagonian Express, The : By Train Through the Americas by Paul Theroux
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
Order of Time, The by Carlo Rovelli
Pale Horse, The by Agatha Christie
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Right Stuff, The by Tom Wolfe
Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

>162 affle: In practice, Ede's books were even less affordable than these figures suggest for someone on average wages, as the proportion of wages spent on the essentials of food, shelter and clothing was much higher in those years, and the amount of discretionary spending correspondingly less.

Yes, it's very questionable whether the "within the reach of everyman" part of the Ede statement has ever come under much strain, unless we consider everyman doomed to follow his contemporaries in their discretionary spending patterns. I bought LEs, starting with the Kelmscott Chaucer facsimile and proceeding through the likes of Night Thoughts and Birds drawn for John Gould, on an income sometimes a little below, otherwise a long way below, the national average: it wasn't difficult because the rest of my living was deliberately inexpensive. I've stopped buying the books mainly because few recent issues tempt me in the slightest: the books have changed and so, to an extent, have I; I feel no guilt about that and attach no blame to the FS.

>164 icewindraider: I bought it during the winter sale for the current sale price. Although I've yet to read it, Max Hastings is a good writer of popular history.

It is the same size as my other WW2 books: "Defeat into Victory" and "Eagle Against the Sun." It has more of a buckram feel than cloth with a paper front, so I guess that's why it is half the price. The slipcase is slick and the photo quality is really great. Printed in Germany.

Less than 300 copies left, so it might make it to the winter sale if it's the only title you're buying and wanted to wait. If you just need the text, Hastings always gets large print runs and you can easily find his books second hand.

Also the Hornblower quartet put up a counter: 94 copies left.

>161 Cat_of_Ulthar: That’d leave many of us gasping in terror :)
In the unlikely event one feels the urge, might I suggest repurposing the silk-lined wooden box for jewelry or family keepsakes instead?

>162 affle:
It's important to remember that your economic argument applied not just to FS but equally to general hardback publishers whose offerings were in the same price range. I was there in the fifties buying from both. If you could afford a new poorly produced novel with faux cloth cover and Bronco paper then you could afford a Folio. To that extent, Ede's claim stands up. As a teenager I paid for my (frequent) purchases with earnings from a part-time job, and had no other responsibilities (other than Sobranie straightcut Virginia). For those with other responsibilities there were alternatives. In my fairly affluent corner of Edinburgh the local newsagent and bookseller ran a lending library, not a patch on Boots, but not uncommon. Those prepared to wait a couple of months could buy these books secondhand for a song. And there were book clubs galore, with new ones springing up every year, mostly at low prices. The usual commitment was the same as Folio's: 4 a year.
It's not just for FS that comparisons with that era don't stand up. For instance it often took 2 or 3 years for a book to appear in paperback, at about a quarter of the original price. Now if you order a new publication you have a choice of hard or paperback, with the latter often more expensive than the former.

>170 Jayked: Now if you order a new publication you have a choice of hard or paperback, with the latter often more expensive than the former.

Can't say I've ever found that, except once in a while when there is a couple of years' delay between hardback and paperback publication and the paperback is newly published. And of course many academic publishers seem to set hardback prices to milk institutional libraries, with the paperback, if there is one, at a much lower price point - often something like a £70/£20 split.

>148 Joshbooks1: Folio didn't have to become a publisher that now makes millions every year to line the pockets of their staff at the expense of the customer. Limited Edition prices now pretty much just tell their base that they don't mind completely hosing them so they can maximize profit instead of setting a fair price so both parties are happy. I can't think of a current publisher that has such inflated prices for what you get - it makes Arion seem like a bargain.

Your complaints about FS are quite voluminous these days. I am truly perplexed by your anger at a company making money. If you flip it around and look at your situation, you make enough money to have purchased 38 FS letterpress Shakespeare editions plus you buy fine press books, including Arion, Barbarian, Foolscap, etc. I think fair to assume you make more than, say, median income. Are you a sellout for making that money and not pursuing the life of an aesthete? Why are you allowed to make money but not FS's owners? Why do you buy 38 FS letterpress Shakespeare volumes for your bookshelf instead of donating to a struggling artist? I don't disagree with every point you make about the direction FS is taking but your vitriol seems to me to be misplaced and perhaps a bit "do as I say, not as I do" in terms of your complaints about them making a profit.

>171 terebinth: I purchased a book only yesterday where the paperback which was released in February was £9.99 - the hardback from mid-2022 was discounted to £5.00. It’s not particularly unusual as once the paperback is released publishers/retailers will often discount the hardback to clear stock & the paperback becomes the default option for future purchasers. I have purchased many books this year where because of discounting the hardback was the same price or less than the paperback version.

>172 LBShoreBook: Haha, well said!

>173 antinous_in_london:

Ah, yes - I've probably benefited from a few such instances, though the range of current publications that appeal to me at all is fairly narrow. I hardly ever buy a paperback unless either there's no hardback edition or it's far more expensive - say £30+ more expensive. Mainly I was taking >170 Jayked:'s comment very literally - "if you order a new publication you have a choice of hard or paperback, with the latter often more expensive" - and I've never come across a newly released book where hardback is the cheaper option.

>172 LBShoreBook:
I think your comments are totally out of order. Regardless of what the posters views are on FS and their direction these days, a personal attack on the poster of 148 is disgraceful.

>175 terebinth: Your experience may well vary from mine if you buy from bookstores. Living in Canada I ordered from the late lamented Book Depository, who frequently charged less for just-published hardbacks. It made no sense to me, but was a welcome change from being gouged for postal and customs charges.

>176 N11284: His post was in no way a personal attack. Josh says FS employees should scrape by so they can provide him (Josh) with luxurious editions of books he can buy for $15 on Amazon.

It’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask why should someone who purchases thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of these books thinks the persons making them should “scrape by,” and why their earning a decent wage is considered “lining their pockets” and “hosing customers.”

Unless Josh owns a money tree, seems like he’s lining his pockets himself somehow.

>178 What_What: Surely until recently FS employees were on a fixed salary, whereas i’m assuming that now that FS has moved to an employee-ownership structure the staff have a larger stake in the balance sheet & are incentivised to produce ‘blockbusters’ as higher sales (and higher prices) directly benefit them financially? If i were a FS employee & had a choice between green lighting a new Stephen King edition or a new edition of the poems of the Earl of Rochester i know which direction i would probably go in.

Maybe i misread, but I had assumed that the comments re ‘lining their pockets’ & ‘hosing customers’ referred to some of the choices FS are making as a company rather than being aimed directly at individual staff - ie. “We have a certain budget for an edition , we can spend that money printing the edition letterpress, or we can spend the money putting the books in a large box with flashing lights/holographic foils/lenticular sleeve (maybe even a free towel !) etc and add another £100 to the profit margin. We’ll also get a lot of social media coverage which we won’t with letterpress as letterpress isn’t ‘sexy’ ”.

The flashy treatment didn’t seem to work with the Rob Roy LE, but if customers were surveyed on the new Beowulf limited edition & asked if they wanted the version shown in the video with the bright shiny coloured foils/foil-printed clamshell case etc or the book printed & bound in a much more traditional format (similar to the Poetic Edda) & also printed letterpress for an extra £100, i wonder which way the vote would go. Would flash triumph over traditional ?

Can Folio really be blamed for increasing the prices of their limited editions in recent years when they'd seen so many titles sell out rapidly only to instantly appear on eBay and be re-sold at up to thrice the price? Isn't it preferable that Folio gain the extra profit rather than professional re-sellers?

I ask that with a degree of emotional detachment as someone who, as a reader rather than a collector per se, generally no longer considers buying limited editions.

>158 RRCBS:
I hear you, but you think that means employees there should scrape by so that others can have LEs at a reasonable price?
No, and I never even implied that. I simply pointed out that what was claimed as 'absurd' was exactly what FS once professed to at least try and do. In fact I believe in exactly the opposite: that a reasonable price has to include a decent rate of pay in the costings, otherwise the price is not reasonable, but exploitative of the employee. Having said that, I would never argue for LEs at 'reasonable' prices, as I have no interest in the LE as a concept, being designed to be exclusive.

>160 RRCBS:
I like the Charles Ede concept, but there are still companies like Everyman’s Library and Library of America producing good quality affordable books. I would love it if they increased their output.
Totally agree! I am certainly using the LoA far more now, to the extent that whereas i would have once bought pretty much all the recent American lit fiction being published by the FS, I have bought none, as I've gone down the more 'reasonable' LoA route instead.

>162 affle:
It's time we heard no more of Charles Ede's everyman.
At the time I started buying FS books, I was earning below the average wage, but still found enough to indulge my love of books. My income now is above average yet, except for the odd production, I 've decided I can't afford FS any more. The proportion of my income available for 'discretionary' spend has definitely gone down and, compared to my other areas of discretionary spend, FS has seen the biggest rises, and I can find better value elsewhere.

>166 CobbsGhost:
None of that argues against any of what I wrote, rather it confirms it if anything. Of the 19 books listed for 1983 (the year closest to when I joined), 12 of the 19 would be of immediate interest to me (I don't recognise some titles - a good sign to me, room for exploration); I actually own 9 of them. Of the 17 books listed for 2023, only 6 titles would be of interest. Of those, I already own 2 previous editions, another I am content with my Library of America edition, another I have a perfectly adequate near mint hardback, leaving just 2 productions actually of interest (both of which are too expensive to actually buy given I have the texts already). Of the 11 others, I have actually read 6 of them, but for me they don't warrant owning copies, let alone FS productions.

>180 cronshaw:

My problem with that - and other publishers are raising their prices in that context, too - is that it cuts off people who would really enjoy such editions since they become too expensive for them. I do understand this reaction, but think it's a real pity that things have gone this way due to the excessive prices of many resellers.

>181 Willoyd:

It was supportive, not argumentative.

Also, according to the financial reports; in 2011 FS employed 99 people but in 2021 FS employed only 40. So, only some of those people get the living wages that we were all so worried about, the others get nothing.

As a postscript to #177, I've just preordered Kate Atkinson's upcoming collection from Blackwell's. They too charge more for the paperback; and the total $29 for book and postage was less than the postage charged on my last Abebooks purchase.

The list of books by decade was interesting. Thanks. I was able to ascertain that I started buying Folio books before 1993 or at latest shortly thereafter, when the E. Nesbit books were offered, and continued past 2003 (John Buchan) possibly as late as 2013; I remember those offerings but wasn't impelled to buy them. The Lang colour fairy tales suffered from losing the membership model, I think. Certainly I never completed the set. I've looked at the website from time to time since then, but bought very little and certainly not within the past several years.

For the first time in years, this Folio sale offered some books that I was interested in at a discount that I'm also interested in. I already own Folio's The Franchise Affair, but the other three by Josephine Tey are represented by cheap and ugly place holders on my shelf. And over several books, the shipping isn't too bad.

>184 Jayked:

The strangeness goes on ;) I don't know Kate Atkinson's work, but the candidate volumes Blackwell's are showing me chime with my usual experiences as regards pricing.

Next collection, Normal Rules Don't Apply, hardback due in August £16.71 (RRP £18.99), paperback due September "Notify me" and no pre-order price yet (but surely lower when it comes along?).

A recent book, Shrines of Gaiety, hardback (September '22) £15.99 (RRP £20), paperback (April '23) £9.54 (RRP £9.99). From Amazon the hardback is £15, the paperback £5.

>186 terebinth:
Hmm. The Canadian page no longer shows a price or indeed a paperback edition for the August British printing, which I buy for the sake of consistency. However the American printing, due in September , does show the paperback more expensive by a dollar or two. I suppose that that too might yet change. Incidentally I was charged VAT for the first time ever, but the amount is too small to complain about, even if I draw the short straw at Canadian customs.

>183 CobbsGhost:
My mistaken reading and apologies. I must admit it didn't read like that to me. (I enjoy a good argument in the proper sense of the word!).

>188 Willoyd:

Me too. We can argue some other time though.

The "voucher code" TMAG4 worked for me, ordering from Canada, and I secured a 10% discount. Thanks for the information.

>181 Willoyd: "I am certainly using the LoA far more now, to the extent that whereas i would have once bought pretty much all the recent American lit fiction being published by the FS, I have bought none, as I've gone down the more 'reasonable' LoA route instead."

One interpretation of your comment(s) could be "I think that FS should publish more literary fiction, but I am not going to buy it/them anyway"

If that is a widespread approach amongst those that agree with you on this thread, is there any wonder that FS is publishing different things instead?

>191 TheEconomist:
One interpretation of your comment(s) could be "I think that FS should publish more literary fiction, but I am not going to buy it/them anyway"
If that is a widespread approach amongst those that agree with you on this thread, is there any wonder that FS is publishing different things instead?
Fair comment. However, I don't think that's an accurate representation of my views, at least not of late. I am simply saying what is stopping me, a previously high spending customer, from buying direct from them.

That comes down to two reasons, not one. First of all, FS started to publish fewer and fewer of the sort of books that I would have normally bought. Then they started hiking their prices to a level where I find it difficult to justify buying most of the few books I would have been immediately interested in, not least because I can find better value elsewhere (often within their own back catalogue!), and where the price is too high to take a chance on a book that might interest. I still very occasionally buy, even expensive productions, but only when FS offers something unique with a book I already really want, for instance added content, or a book that is hard to buy in a high enough quality format/state. So, when it comes to the American lit fiction books they've published of late which I would have previously been interested in, the price is simply too much, and there is better value elsewhere now. And in that case it's primarily because there's LoA.

So, I'm definitely not saying FS should publish more literary fiction, but I'm not going to buy it anyway. I'm saying that, in all but a few cases nowadays, FS no longer offers either the books or sufficient value for me to buy from them direct. I'm certainly not saying that FS should or shouldn't publish anything, or at a particular price - I'm just saying what has stopped me from buying from them.

>193 Joshbooks1: societies that appoint an arbiter of who deserves what generally find that their populations are willing to risk getting shot in order to escape across the border.