HBO’s Game of Thrones reached its dramatic conclusion yesterday, but the Folio Society is encouraging fans to go back to the original source by releasing collector editions of George R.R. Martin’s original Song of Ice and Fire novels, beginning with A Game of Thrones.Last week, the publisher revealed the full cover art for the planned re-release of Martin’s first book in the fantasy epic, which will come July 16 in two volumes for $195.
The cover of one of the volumes features a raven perched atop the corpse of a mother direwolf, the one fatally gored by a stag in Winterfell but whose pups would grow up to become the direwolves of the Stark family. The other cover shows a lion, the sigil of House Lannister, attacking a stag, the sigil of House Baratheon.
These new covers — accompanied by eight illustrated chapter openers, nine illustrated house sigils, and nine family trees — were illustrated by artist Jonathan Burton, a regular collaborator with Folio who previously designed special edition covers for Cover Her Face, by P. D. James; Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell; and the entire Hitchhikers series.
Fantasy author Joe Abercrombie also wrote an introduction for this release of A Game of Thrones. A Game of Thrones also comes with a fold-out map of “the Known World” that arrives as a separately bound volume, and a gold-blocked slipcase with a secret illustration of a White Walker inside.
Handsome books. I am a fan. However, the next to last episode was an unforgettable horror.
I have to admit that although I love the Folio reissues, I usually ony purchase secondhand copies.
Me too. They are pretty though.