My one wish would be for an extra image or two that pulled back from the tight focus on characters to show the wider context of the world they inhabit. The execution of the images is excellent and the realist style lends a certain polish to the presentation. The style is realist with a fairly literal interpretation of scenes from the book, but several of the images have a slightly unsettling surreal undertone that reflects the light science fiction elements of the story. By modern standards, this represents a fairly generous offering for a book of only 152 pages. There are six in total (including the frontispiece). There’s little about the typographical design that stands out, but being a fairly standard Folio Society presentation is by no means a bad thing.įull-page illustrations are furnished by Sam Weber. The text is (Adobe) Caslon, with the display and page numbers set in a face called Railroad Gothic. As usual, that means the paper is acid free, smooth, matte, and has good (though not perfect) opacity. It should come as no great surprise that the text is printed on Folio Society’s regular Abbey Wove paper. Overall, I’d say the design comes together nicely as a fittingly modern presentation for this volume.

The end papers are red and the binding is sewn with red and black head and tail bands. The title and author’s name are blocked in the same colour scheme on the spine. The front board is printed with a red and black design by the illustrator featuring a suitably dystopian fireman, complete with Wehrmacht-style helmet. Removing the book from its (plain black) slipcase, we find a volume bound in grey buckram. This is the central conceit of Ray Bradbury‘s 1953 science fiction classic, Fahrenheit 451, published in this edition by the Folio Society in 2011. Imagine a future in which the social role of firemen is not to extinguish fires, but to ignite them in a zealous campaign of book-burning.

Fahrenheit 451 folio society