Folio Society – THE SEASONS: The Complete Folio Anthologies [4 Vols] – AUTUMN, WINTER, SUMMER and SPRINGThe complete collection of the Folio Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer anthologies. A year-round ode to the changing seasons, each with its unique characteristics and authors who celebrate their arrival.AUTUMN – INTRODUCED BY KATHLEEN JAMIEAutumn is a season of mists, bonfires and copper-coloured leaves. William Blake heralds autumn’s ‘golden load’ of fruits; Alison Uttley speaks of its ‘mother-of-pearl mists’ and Pushkin recalls the bittersweet kisses of lovers who must soon part. There are poems by John Clare, Emily Brontë, Edward Thomas, Matsuo Bashō and more, and extracts from Walden and Bleak House, as well as from lesser-known works, such as an early 20th-century children’s guide on how to study maple trees. Also included are a homesteader’s notes on making apple butter in 18th-century America.WINTER – INTRODUCED BY SUSAN COOPERWinter is traditionally beloved of voracious readers, where each shorter day seems to suggest an evening spent curled up by the fire with a good book. We are treated to Charlotte Brontë’s evocation of nature in Jane Eyre, and witness the Northern Lights with Captain Scott: ‘fold on fold the arches and curtains of vibrating luminosity rose and spread across the sky’. Elsewhere we visit Charles Dickens, and learn of the difficulties inherent in capturing images of snowflakes with photographer Wilson Bentley.SPRING – INTRODUCED BY PAUL EVANSSpring brings the promise of sunny days and the sweeping-away of winter blues. This affectionate and humorous selection includes work by George Orwell, Rachel Carson, Toni Morrison, P. G. Wodehouse and more. In a passage from The Wind in the Willows, Mole spring-cleans his house before scrambling above ground to roll in ‘the warm grass of a great meadow’. Anton Chekhov is in awe of the River Goltva’s ‘rampant spring waters’ and a world ‘lit by stars, bestrewing every corner of the sky’. Coleridge writes of birds rejoicing, while his friend Wordsworth meditates on the passage of time in his famous ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’.SUMMER – INTRODUCED BY STORM DUNLOPSummer is the season of freedom, discovery and a lifetime of magical childhood memories. Elizabeth David recounts the pleasure of simple picnics on the banks of the Seine. Bill Bryson travels back to the iconic American summer of 1927 with Babe Ruth, Al Capone and Henry Ford all cited in his evocative overview. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic a decade earlier, Siegfried Sassoon delights in the ‘pale gold of the wheat-field’ as he journeys to London on a hospital train across the landscape he fought to save during the First World War.The set of 4 separate volumes is illustrated with a series of striking double-page designs and incidental motifs by Petra Börner. The London-based Swedish-born artist specialises in nature-inspired themes and her work has been exhibited all over the world. Börner has worked across all the anthologies and her designs move fluidly through each season with an opposite colour palette and imagery that matches the change in weather and tempo. Börner also created each book’s elegant binding design.DESCRIPTION: 4 volume set. Edited by Sue Bradbury. Illustrated by Petra Börner. Quarter-bound in blocked cloth with printed paper sides. Set in Caslon. 386 pages in total. Frontispiece and 4 full-colour double-page illustrations and numerous tailpieces per volume. Size: 83/4” x 51/2”Please note that these editions are not published with slipcases.CONDITION: Books are NEW and SEALED in the publisher’s original SHRINK WRAP. However, please note the very slight tiny marks on the fore-edge of the Spring volume where there is a small split in the shrink wrap (see photos 3 & 4). Also note the tear to the shrink wrap on the Summer volume (see photo 6). Photos 1 to 9 are of the actual book that is listed. Whilst photos 10 to 12 are stock photos.
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