Most Beautiful Books of 2025 – Special Editions
A Holiday Gift Guide
Prettiest Books of 2025 - 'Something Special'
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This is my last chapter of the 2025 “Most Beautiful Books of the Year” annual holiday gift guide. It's the ‘something special‘ section – the splurge-y, deluxe or extra fancy editions that may be too indulgent for your wallet but are fun to look at none-the-less! My picks for the best of these for 2025 are listed below, and any book with a star (★) next to it is also visually reviewed in the video (at the moment that's all of them, but I might add a couple more when I've finished reading them – or you share some of your favourites!). Please note that nothing is sponsored or given to me by publishers – I only review books I genuinely like enough to buy for myself or as gifts for friends and family.
Bookshop links are included below if you are interested in buying any of the books for yourself. Some of the links are affiliate links (and thank you if you use them!) but please do support your local bookstore as a priority if you can. If you're new here, and you'd like more regular recommendations, you might also like to check out my regularly updated lists of special editions, pre-order offers, and/or subscribe to my very occasional newsletter.
Thanks for sharing this journye with me – I hope you found some treasures!
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Video Overview
Something Special
★ The Inferno - Dante Alighieri
The book is a fascinating walk through moral architecture as Dante descends through the nine circles of hell. This edition leans into the physical sense of place evoked by the text. It uses Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetic translation and surrounds it with illustrations by British linocut artist Sophy Hollington, plus an introduction by Ilya Kaminsky and an essay by scholar Kristina Olson.
Hollington is a great choice for this text with linocut (relief printmaking carved into a block) naturally producing bold shapes and high contrast edges, woven with arcane and folkloric forms into symbolically rich compositions that reflect where monsters and metaphors meet.
Beehive Illuminated Edition. An oversized, slipcase-housed, clothbound elaborately illustrated art book edition.
➤ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Waterstones | Beehive
☞ See also the Beehive Illuminated Editions series guide
★ Carmilla – Sheridan Le Fanu
A vampire story from the 19th century that arrived before Dracula, and pioneered depictions of queer longing in contemporary fiction. The illuminated edition has an introduction by Poppy Z. Brite and illustrations by cartoonist and illustrator Rosemary Valero-O’Connell. Rosemary’s art approach is framed as tender and menacing, and it does a great job of capturing intimate looks and unspoken desire.
Beehive Illuminated Edition. An oversized volume is housed in a foiled, die-cut, sculpturally embossed slipcase, printed on uncoated acid-free paper, and published in a 9″ x 12″ trim format.
➤ Buy from Amazon | B&N | Beehive Books
☞ See also the Beehive Illuminated Editions series guide
★ The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
A Victorian blend of Gothic horror and early detective fiction that opens with a chance encounter on a moonlit road: a distressed woman dressed entirely in white emerges from the shadows and implores a young drawing teacher for his help in escaping her pursuers. As the story unfolds, a complex web of secrets and deceit emerges, involving a substantial family inheritance, a ruthless Italian aristocrat, and a devilish scheme.
Kings Langley Press Edition. Smyth-sewn hardcover, bound in buckram and housed in a paper-covered slipcase with 20 watercolour illustrations, chapter decorations, and illustrated endpapers by Oleg Pakhomov.. Designed in series with their earlier volume The Moonstone.
➤ Find it at Kings Langsley Press | Abes | eBay
★ Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator - Roald Dahl
Last seen flying through the sky in a giant elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie Bucket is back for another adventure. When the giant elevator picks up speed, Charlie, Wonka and the gang are sent hurtling through space and time where they visiting the world’s first space hotel, battle the dreaded Vermicious Knids, and generally save the world.
Suntup Artist Edition. Color illustrations by Quentin Blake, a new afterword by Donald Sturrock, printed by offset lithography.
➤ Find it at Suntup Press | Abes | eBay
★ The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Set in Nazi Germany and narrated by Death, the story follows Liesel as she steals books, learns to read, and begins to understand how language can be both weapon and refuge.
The Folio edition includes a new introduction by the author, and is illustrated by Alexis Deacon with six double-page colour illustrations, plus an illustrated title spread and integrated black-and-white drawings. It's a standard edition release that followed a limited edition from 2024.
Folio Society. Bound in textured paper printed and blocked with a wrap-around colour picture. Slipcase printed with a wrap-around colour picture. Standard edition of a 2024 limited.
➤ Find it at Folio Society | Abes | eBay
★ A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr.
After a nuclear catastrophe often called the Flame Deluge, human society collapses into superstition, violence, and scattered survival. In the wreckage, a Catholic monastic order – the Order of Leibowitz – devotes itself to preserving fragments of the lost world’s knowledge: blueprints, books, shopping lists, technical manuals, scraps of scientific text. The novel follows this order across roughly a thousand years as society rebuilds.
Folio’s edition is printed in black and gold ink, and has an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Dirda, and it is illustrated by Elliot Lang with 12 full-colour illustrations, including 2 double-page spreads; 3 part-title illustrations; and thirty illuminated drop-caps. The drop caps are a thoughtful addition as they mirror the book’s own obsession with preserving and sanctifying text.
Folio Society. Bound in cloth screen-printed and blocked with a wrap-around colour picture. Yellow illustration printed on a black slipcase. Standard edition of a 2024 limited edition.
➤ Find it at Folio Society | Abes | eBay
★ Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
At a surface level, this is about a House: endless halls, statues, and tides that move through the architecture like weather, where Piranesi lives and catalogues the world, until another figure arrives with some questions. There are six charming vintage-style illustrations including a double-page spread by Julian de Narvaez. Julian is a Colombian illustrator who starts his illustrations by building detail in pen and ink before adding digital colouring.
Folio Society. The physical design of the book is supposed to be reminiscent of an object from inside the house, with its gilded page edges and head-shaped die-cut in the slipcase that reveals Piranesi and the inner world of the House. There's also a new afterword by the author which talks about her inspiration to create the book.
➤ Find it at Folio Society | Abes | eBay
★ Endless Night - Agatha Christie
If you mostly know Agatha Christie for the neat satisfactions of her “fair play” puzzles, Endless Night is a bit of a change of gear. The story is told in the voice of Michael Rogers, a young man who falls hard for an idea of happiness – land, love, and a house built on the isolated and bad luck plagued lands of Gipsy’s Acre. It’s still unmistakably Christie, but its more gothic literature than her usual fare. The title itself comes from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, and she reportedly wrote it in just six weeks, saying it was one of her personal favourites.
It’s illustrated by Hokyoung Kim, with a frontispiece and six full-colour illustrations, and the art is built around deep, moody tones that fit the novel’s uneasy feel.
Folio Society. Three-quarter bound in blocked cloth, with a textured paper front cover printed and blocked with a wrap-around colour picture. Plain slipcase.
➤ Find it at Folio Society | Abes | eBay
☞ See my guide to the Folio Society Agatha Christie publications for more in this series
★ The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
If you’re not already familiar with the story, the underlying premise is that a unicorn learns she may be the last of her kind, and sets out to find what happened to the others. It’s a gentle fantasy that captures enchantment through examining both wonder and loss. It features a new preface by the authorand an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. The magical mythical watercolour illustrations by Lily Seika Jones are the real drawcard here – and there are over 35 of them, ranging from delicate linework to luminous full-colour double page spreads.
Folio Society Limited Edition. Signed by Peter Beagle and Lily Seika Jones. Gold metallic endpapers. Gold ribbon page marker. Foiled book edges in a rose gold. Bound in green leather, foiled in rose-gold and white on cover with title and picture. Fawn clamshell box with gold and white decorations on front and sides, and inset colour picture on front, lined in paper printed with an illustration by the artist. 500 copies.
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