Hyperion. It’s finally here, and I’m so pleased to show you all the last year’s work.
Dan Simmons’ “Hyperion” is an absolute masterpiece as a standalone model and as a four part quartet known as the “Cantos”.
This has been a long road indeed and I have gone through many iterations of prototypes and design to end up with what we have here. One thing you will notice is that I haven’t shared information on the Roman Numeral Edition, and that’s because I’m still not ready with that version yet.
There are numerous themes that run through this series of books, and I always try and pick one that feels right. When designing for a series it makes the process much more difficult as you want cohesion between each book of the series.
Hyperion, Dan Simmons:
There are three tier’s in total for this series :
Deluxe/Numbered Edition – 300 copies (150 for rights holders, 150 for general sale)
Lettered Edition – 26 copies
Roman Numeral Edition – 8 copies
The Lettered/Deluxe rights holders will be contacted following this announcement to purchase their respective designation of Hyperion. Any copies not redeemed will be made available on public pre-order.
Whilst prices have unfortunately risen, I really believe you get a lot of book for your money. The Numbered Edition is akin to some Lettered Editions out there. I just felt Hyperion needed to have the boat fully pushed out as it’s such an iconic title. Apologies to anybody priced out of this edition, genuinely.
Pre-Order
Rights holders will be contacted following this announcement to purchase the book. They will have until Monday 6th November at 21:00GMT to exercise their rights.
Public Pre-Order is set to November 7th at 20:00 GMT.
Any untaken copies will be made available at public pre-order. The books purchased with publishers rights will be chosen randomly and announced by Friday 10th of November.
Art
Quickly becoming my favourite artist, Jaime Jones has been doing some phenomenal work on this project, and I’m very pleased to confirm him for the second book. The first arc spans the first two books, so it’s just right that Jaime carries this on.
Jaime’s pedigree is unrivalled. He has worked on Hollywood Movies like The Batman, Man of Steel and Star Wars; The Last Jedi. Not only that he has worked on AAA-rated games like Destiny, dabbled with Magic the Gathering and illustrated several books.
For this edition of Hyperion, Jaime is doing 8 full colour pieces and 23 B&W line drawings. The colour images are being oil painted by Jaime and the line drawings are indian ink with crow quill.
The feature image for this production is below and is not unique to a particular tier, it will be included someway with each one:
A selection of Jaime’s B&W sketches for the interior. There are 23 in total.
The Editions
Deluxe
Limited to 300 copies.
Printed two colour letterpress on Munken Soft Cream 120gsm over 448 pages by Nomad Letterpress of Cheltenham. The interior contains custom chapter headings and drop caps and is signed by both Author and Artist.
Fully bound in blue Nigerian Goatskin with all over “Labrynth” blind stamping design. The boards feature the “Sphinx” time tomb design with four colours of hot foil stamping and the spine has been rounded with a further 2 colour passes of foil stamping.
Head and tailbands are brown and the book comes with a gilded top edge and finished off with a black ribbon.
The book is contained within a clamshell enclosure. The clamshell comes with a two colour label in Munken and has further foil stamping on the front and spine. The final version will be covered in Metalium (a metal sheen style cloth) and trays covered in sumptuous Suedel.
The final production version will have a much deeper imprint of the blind Labrynth all-over stamping, and we will update the pictures when we have new prototypes.
Pre-order price – £650
Published price – £700
Lettered
Printed two colour letterpress on mouldmade paper Liber Charta 145gsm over 448 pages by Nomad Letterpress of Cheltenham. The interior contains custom chapter headings and drop caps and is signed by both Author and Artist.
Fully bound in finest black Harmatan leather with rounded spine and four raised bands. The boards have two beautifully marbled leather onlays of The Shrike and The Sphinx by Freya at Paperwilds, with a foil stamp outline. The book is finished with a further 3 colours of foil stamping to both covers and the spine.
Finished with gold gilding to all three sides as well as blue ribbon, and black and blue head and tailbands. This edition also comes with beautifully marbled endpapers by Freya from Paperwilds.
The enclosure is a rounded spine solander with four raised headbands fully covered in finest black Harmatan leather. There are two further marbled leather onlays of “Cruciforms” on both the front and the back, and the box is edged with another strip of the marbled leather to tie in the design completely.
Inside the box is lined with sumptuous black suedel with silhouetted gold stamped design of the pilgrims heading towards the time tombs. There is also a well included underneath the main book.
John Keats
The Lettered Edition also comes with another book. John Keats’ epic poem “Hyperion” hand set in Caslon 12pt monotype (a popular font from the era) by Nomad Letterpress. This book is printed on some of the few remaining pieces of Zerkell 8181 115gsm and is 48 pages long.
The book is the unfinished poem and contains all three Hyperion “books” written by John Keats. Bound in a Colorado Lined Cloth called “Chobi” the book has a two colour foil stamped design of John Keats himself, drawn by the amazing Jaime Jones.
Pre-order price £2,850
Published price £3,150
