Fantasy classics often have a myth-like quality that lends itself to beautiful, carefully crafted editions, explains our fantasy editor Sylvia Bishop. She introduces five key examples – from hand-produced wood-engravings to the re-colouring of a lifetime’s work, these books are labours of love.
There are some gorgeously produced books on your list today – they look like real labours of love.
Yes. With one exception, all of these are fantasy classics – they’ve earned their right to a lavish illustrated edition by becoming ‘must haves’ on a fantasy shelf. The exception is a Pratchett book, which was written with its illustrations from the outset – but in that case, it feels like it is the setting, Discworld, which has earned the right.
There are some books that are worth owning beautiful copies of. I think it feels natural for fantasy, which plays so close to our sense of the mythic or foundational or sacred or however you want to think about it – these are exactly the sorts of stories that seem to belong in a weighty, laboured-over tome.
The first thing to say is that this really is complete: six novels and four short stories. A lot of collected editions fall short of the complete set. This is everything from Earthsea, the archipelago world where Le Guin sets her fantasies (her other most famous world is the universe overseen by Hain, for her sci fi works.)
First, if anyone hasn’t read Earthsea yet, you must. My personal favourite is Tombs of Atuan. All of them are beautifully written, lyrical and assured, but Tombs inhabits a strange, dark, unforgettable corner of the world. Overall, this world is for fans of very pure, classic fantasy, where magic is bound up in the Names of things and characters go on self-improving quests.
It’s a little surprising that it didn’t always come with illustrations, since it can be read from quite a young age.
Le Guin addresses that in her introduction to this edition. She was very anti, because even with cover art she was so often lumbered with wizards shooting stars out of their fingers or dinosaur-like dragons. So essentially she resisted until she had enough status and heft to choose the illustrations herself – as she did here.
In fact, it sounds like she more than chose them – she worked very closely with illustrator Charles Vess, as he described to Tor magazine. There are fifty-six illustrations, seven colour plates, and maps. Vess worked on the project for four years, and received both the Locus and the Hugo in 2019 for Best Art Book.
Yes! So the first thing to say here is that Alan Lee’s illustrations for Tolkien were first seen in the 60th anniversary Hobbit edition and centenary Lord of the Rings edition, and he was the conceptual designer for the films of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. If you have a sense of how Middle-earth is meant to look, the chances are you’ve osmosed it from Lee. So this rendering of the world might well feel pleasingly ‘correct’.
And whether or not that applies to you, these are beautiful. All four are boxed together, in hardback. There are seventy colour pages across the set, as well as many more illustrations. Lee’s art style is often compared to William Morris, whom Tolkien admired, and it just fits. It’s easy to see why he won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 1998 when the centenary edition of The Hobbit came out.
A real collector’s piece…
If you really really collect, Lee also illustrated a set of the ‘Great Tales’, some of Tolkien’s lesser-known works in the same world.
These illustrations! You must see these illustrations. Chris Wormell works by making wood engravings, then bringing them to life in rich colour. You can see examples online of how his sketches led to final wood engravings, and there’s a lovely interview with Wormell explaining his process on In The Reading Corner. You might recognise his style from the covers of Pullman’s new books in the same world, The Book of Dust trilogy. But these fully illustrated editions are something else. The illustrations are full colour; the edition is roughly A4, with two columns of text to a page.
I’ve listed Northern Lights, but he’s now completed the other two books in the trilogy – The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Oxford rooftops, armoured bears, sleds over snow, zeppelins, fens… These are wonderfully evocative.
That list alone is quite an advertisement. For anyone not familiar with it, could you tell us about the story?
Oh, it’s so hard to summarise, because it’s a true epic journey – we go from Oxford to Svalbard in the first book, and into other worlds in the next. Technically, in fact, we start in another world from the beginning, because this is a recognisable-but-different Oxford. Lyra lives at a college there and spies on her uncle… and the adventure gets underway…
The main conceit to know is that in this world, people have daemons. These are a sort of external soul in the form of an animal – a psychically linked companion that can never move too far from you. By adulthood, their form is fixed, but children’s daemons can shapeshift. This is central to the plot, but also massively central to the fantasy appeal. Reading it, you want a daemon so badly.
Your fourth choice was conceived as an illustrated book from the outset. Tell us about Terry Pratchett’s The Last Hero, illustrated by Paul Kidby.
There are a lot of huge series on this list. This is a standalone novella, so it’s a good one if you’re not quite in the market for these epic adventures.
It’s illustrated by Paul Kidby, of course – if you don’t know the name, you’ll immediately recognise the style. He’s worked extensively on Pratchett’s writing. Here, the book was conceived as a fully illustrated, large-format edition.
‘Illustrated’ doesn’t do it justice. Even the text-only pages are given an aged-colour look and careful design choices. There are plentiful double-page spreads and in-text illustrations, all colour throughout. And perhaps my favourites, there are regular extracts from the notebook of mad-genius inventor Leonard of Quirm, self-consciously styled on the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (even featuring Rincewind as the Etruscan Man); these are full of little notations, adding more detail than you find in the main text.
Leonard, Rincewind… These are standard Discworld characters, then?
Oh yes. Also Captain Carrot, and the Librarian, and Lord Vetinari, and a brief cameo from Death… In fact, this book is the ultimate tour of Discworld, because one unfortunate group of characters are hoping to drop off the edge and catapult themselves back round again. For anyone who doesn’t know, Discworld is carried by four elephants who are standing on a turtle. Maybe you didn’t realise that what you needed in your life was an illustration of the underside of Discworld, among the elephants, but now you know.
The mind boggles. Time for your fifth choice. It’s seven books in one, which is almost cheating… This is C. S. Lewis’s The Complete Chronicles of Narnia, illustrated by Pauline Baynes – astonishingly, it’s the entire series unabridged.
And illustrated throughout! It’s a large hardback, with two columns of text to a page. Colour illustrations throughout, and a ribbon for keeping your place – I am a huge sucker for a ribbon.
Baynes knew C. S. Lewis personally – actually, she met Tolkien first, who loved her work and introduced her. She did the original line illustrations for the books, which she has water-coloured here. If you grew up with the black-and-white editions, it’s a surreal stepping-into-Oz moment to see them in full colour.
What can I say about such a well-loved series? Only to encourage you, if you only know The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, to explore the rest. Personally, I love The Magician’s Nephew, which was written later but comes first chronologically, and I’m so pleased to see it included in its rightful place here. It’s an origin story for Narnia, and there are lots of lovely ‘Aha!’ moments as you realise how things are going to slot into place.
A little like Lee for Tolkien and Kidby for Pratchett, Baynes is the visual voice accompanying Lewis. This anniversary edition had to be her. And did I mention it has a ribbon?
December 13, 2025
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