Let January Be Your Time to Relax and Reconnect
Whether you over indulged over the festive season or just want to unwind, poetry is a great way to relax the mind. The Folio Society has produced three very different, equally lovely volumes of poetry for those looking for a bit of inner peace:
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Three Other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Selected Poems by Rumi
- The Book of Psalms
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER & THREE OTHER POEMS
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
& Three Other Poems
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Illustrated by Harry Brockway
Available exclusively from www.foliosociety.com
Bound in cloth, blocked with a design by the artist. Set in Albertina. 120 pages. Frontispiece and 23 integrated black & white wood engravings. Blocked slipcase. 11¾˝ x 8¾˝.
UK £34.95|US $51.95|Can $69.95|Aus $69.95
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the most innovative and influential of all the English Romantic poets. This beautiful edition emulates our popular limited edition, with four immortal poems superbly illustrated by Harry Brockway, one of the UK’s leading wood-engravers. A striking binding design by the artist and a blocked slipcase make this the perfect vessel for Coleridge’s fantastical journeys.
From the mystical power of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ to the visionary magnificence of ‘Kubla Khan’, Coleridge’s work reshaped the landscape of English poetry. He forged new paths in philosophy and criticism, but it is his poems that have earned him pre-eminence. His images are embedded in our cultural consciousness: the beauty and perils of Xanadu; the ‘glittering eye’ of the ancient mariner; the ‘charméd water’ of deathly seas.
This edition unites ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ with three poems published as a single volume in 1816: ‘Christabel’, ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘The Pains of Sleep’. All were exceptionally influential on later writers: Mary Shelley in Frankenstein, Bram Stoker in Dracula and Herman Melville in Moby-Dick all explicitly refer to ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.
The final poem, ‘The Pains of Sleep’, is one of Coleridge’s most personal, written during a nightmare-ridden period of withdrawal from laudanum, the drug to which he was addicted. It is an outpouring that uncovered his deepest soul, his sense of wasted promise and guilt, and his desperate, childlike yearning for love.
Illustration by Harry Brockway from The Folio Society edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
& Three Other Poems ©Harry Brockway
SELECTED POEMS BY RUMI
Selected Poems
By Rumi (Jallād-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī )
Translated by Coleman Barks
Introduced by Michael Schmidt
Illustrated by Marian Bantjes
Available exclusive from www.foliosociety.com
Bound in cloth blocked with a design by the artist. Set in Arno Pro. 376 pages.
Printed with metallic blue and rose gold patterns throughout. Ribbon marker.
Plain slipcase. 8¾” x 7¾”
UK £39.95|US $59.95|Can $81.95|Aus $79.95
Rumi is celebrated across the Islamic world as a visionary thinker, his verses revered as masterpieces of Persian literature. Nearly 750 years after Rumi’s death, Coleman Barks’s vibrant translations have also achieved the unlikely feat of making him the best-selling poet in the USA. The poems have even been among the favourites of Madonna, Tilda Swinton, Beyonce & Jay-Z and Chris Martin.
Shortly after his birth in present-day Afghanistan in 1207, Rumi’s family were forced to flee Mongol invaders, eventually settling in Konya, in modern-day Turkey. It was there in 1244 that he encountered the eccentric Sufi dervish, Shams of Tabriz. Their intense spiritual friendship was shattered by Shams’s sudden departure a devastating loss which changed the course of Rumi’s life. Over the next 30 years, he produced prodigious outpourings of verse and prose, addressing readers with rare directness – by turns confrontational and playful, lyrical and abrupt, and his range is extraordinary. With his inclusive vision of the world and his tolerance, wisdom and humour, this 13th-century mystic continues to speak to 21st-century readers with startling immediacy.
Coleman Barks first encountered Rumi’s poems in 1976, when a fellow author showed him academic translations with the suggestion that ‘these poems need to be released from their cages’. Barks responded by producing what he calls ‘playful palimpsests’ – epigrammatic free-verse translations that allow Rumi’s distinctive voice to bridge vast gaps of culture, geography, language and time. Barks’s ‘Selected Poems’ capture Rumi’s spirit without imprisoning it.
This beautiful edition features a spectacular binding designed by Marian Bantjes. Her intricate Islamic-inspired geometric patterns also frame every page of text, evoking the music and whirling dances associated with Rumi’s poems, and encouraging us to lose ourselves in his words.
THE BOOK OF PSALMS
The Book of Psalms
(From the Authorised King James Version of the Bible)
Introduced by Valentine Cunningham
Lettering designed by Jessica Hische
Bound in cloth blocked with lettering by the artist. Set in Arno. 296 pages. Printed in 2 colours throughout. Gilt rose-gold page tops. Ribbon marker. Blocked slipcase. 6¼” x 4¼”
UK £24.95|US $36.95|Can $49.95|Aus $49.95
The Book of Psalms is the spiritual ‘heart’ of the Bible, a key instrument of communal worship for practising Christians and Jews and a focus for private devotion. The 150 Psalms also form the ancient world’s greatest collection of poetry, continuing to speak to readers with unparalleled power more than 2,500 years after they were first composed.
Known in Hebrew simply as Tehillim or ‘Praises’, the Psalms take us from the heights of confidence to the depths of self-doubt, from crippling despair to overwhelming joy. With their highly personal outpourings and vast psychological range, reading the Psalms remains an intense religious, literary and emotional experience.
The King James Version is the definitive translation of the Bible, unique in its influence on the culture and literature of the English-speaking world. Commissioned by James I in 1604, it took a committee of 47 pre-eminent scholars the next 7 years to complete. With its deliberate archaism, literal translation of Hebrew metaphors and sensitivity to the spoken word, its version of The Book of Psalms captures the essence of the original Hebrew text while achieving its own poetry.
In his new introduction, Valentine Cunningham explores the Psalms’ enduring power as a source of literary, religious, political and personal inspiration – and how their language has become our language.
This exquisite edition fits perfectly into the hand, allowing an intensely personal reading experience and an intimate connection with these soul-searching poems. Jessica Hische’s beautiful lettering and the generous layouts bring new clarity to the text, whether one is focusing on a single Psalm or experiencing their cumulative effect, reading aloud or for silent contemplation, as poetry or prayer.