Just in case – ahem! – you were wondering what to get me for my birthday, a particularly scrumptious set of Jane Austen editions is issuing, with tantalizing slowness, from the Folio Society. London-based Folio is known for producing elegantly printed, beautifully illustrated and crazily expensive hardbacks of works both classic and contemporary.
The Austen editions came to my attention this week, when Folio announced the release of its Sense and Sensibility, with an introduction by the mysterious Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, famous for using a pseudonym so impenetrable that, supposedly, no one knows who she (?) really is.
Turns out that Folio did a Pride and Prejudice last year and an Emma earlier this year, as well as an edition of the 1870 Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew, J.E. Austen-Leigh. We can only hope that the rest are not far behind.
Judging from the web site pictures I’ve been squinting at, all four of the volumes published so far look delightful. Together, they’ll run you just about $234. Which seems about right for a birthday, don’t you think?
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