Coming next
Three more roots of fantasy
Every book we make is a root of the genre: out of copyright, out of print in any form worth keeping, and bound the way it should have been the first time.
Each of these gets the same treatment as Phantastes: case-bound hardcover, gold foil on front and spine, sprayed edges in its own colour, printed endpapers, a ribbon, and a painting from the period wrapping the case. Nothing is printed until it's ordered, and nothing goes to press until enough readers want it.
Which one we bind first is up to the list.
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Gloaming PressLilith a romance
1895
Lilith
A man follows a raven through a mirror in his own library and into a region of sleepers, shadows and the woman who will not die. MacDonald's last fantasy, and his strangest: a book about death written as a dream you can't wake from.
If Phantastes was the book that baptized Lewis's imagination, this is the one MacDonald spent his life walking toward.
- Sprayed edges in deep crimson
- Companion volume to Phantastes
Cover painting: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith (1866–73). Public domain.
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Gloaming PressThe Wood
Beyond the World a romance1894
The Wood Beyond the World
A merchant's son takes ship from a city he can't bear, and lands in a country that exists nowhere on any map: a valley with a Lady, a Maid, and a bargain with no good ending. One of the first fantasies set in a wholly invented world.
Morris printed the first edition himself at the Kelmscott Press, with a frontispiece by Burne-Jones. This is the book our whole format descends from.
- Sprayed edges in forest green
- Kelmscott-inspired endpapers
Cover painting: John William Waterhouse, La Belle Dame sans Merci (1893). Public domain.
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Gloaming PressThe Worm
Ouroboros a heroic romance1922
The Worm Ouroboros
Demonland against Witchland, in language borrowed from the Jacobeans and battles staged like opera. Excessive, glittering, and unlike anything written since: a war story that ends by beginning again.
Tolkien called Eddison the greatest and most convincing writer of invented worlds he had read, even while disliking half of what the man believed.
- Sprayed edges in dragon red
- The longest of the three, and the most demanding
Cover painting: Albrecht Altdorfer, The Battle of Alexander at Issus (1529). Public domain.
Tell us which
One letter when the next one is ready
Join the list and we'll ask you which of the three to bind first. No schedule, no filler, and nothing else sent to you in between.