First Folio: A Little Book of Folio Forewords

This anthology reprints fifteen introductions originally written for later illustrated reprints of older books. Novelists, historians, and critics introduce works that range from political treatises and travel writing to novels, poems, and fairy-tale collections. Typical pieces discuss how a later reader approaches Machiavelli, Tolstoy, Dickens, Yeats, or a modern novel, mixing comment on the original author's method with an account of the book's design. There is no continuous argument. The volume is a sampler of commissioned literary prefaces, each complete in itself, gathered as a small book of reading about reading.

Quarter bound in black cloth with blue paper boards printed with author names. Blue endleaves. Dark blue slipcase.