Today’s episode of Beautiful Books is a
quick review of the Occult limited edition
of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil
Gaiman.
The book is published by Dunmanifestin and
is available through Discworld.com and via
the artist’s website at PaulKidby.com.
It retails at £95 pounds.
First off, the book is joyfully huge– here
I’ve put it beside the Discworld Hardback
Library edition for scale – that one is
about the size of a decent paperback for reference,
and secondly here is a comparison with the
Folio Society edition of Mort.
At 23 by 30 cm, the pages have about double
the area of even the large standard and slipcased
‘Definitive’ editions.
However, despite the large size it is still
comfortably readable.
Just.
The book comes in a red and black clamshell
case, complete with ribbon pull so that you
can easily remove it from the box.
The cover is beautifully foiled and prominently
features the batwing hourglass design.
For those of you who don’t know, this design
was actually discovered by Terry and Neil
during an author’s photo shoot when the
book was first published in 1990.
The shoot took place in Kensal Green Cemetary
in London.
After the shoot, they specifically requested
that the carved bat-winged hourglass you can
see above their heads be used as a design
motif in the book.
This photo is included on the back of the
first edition and a couple of later ones as
well.
The case is covered in an imitation snake-skin
textured material, with red edges and made
to look like a book itself.
The book has metallic red crackling on the
cover, and it is sturdily put together with
a strong smyth-sewn binding, slightly more
delicate red-foiled edges, and a sewn-in black
ribbon bookmark.
There is a double frontispiece featuring framed
full-body portraits of Aziraphale and Crowley.
The tip-in title page is also foiled, and
each edition is hand-numbered and signed by
the artist Paul Kidby.
The Occult edition is limited to 1655 copies,
1655 being of course the year that Agnes Nutter
recorded her Nice and Accurate Prophecies.
This adherence to special numbers is followed
through with the other limited format editions
in this series: the Ineffable edition – which
has a fancier box, comes with a separate folio
of ephemera and is also signed by Neil Gaiman
is limited to 666 copies – while the ultra-limited
Celestial edition for which there are only
24 copies is somewhat humorously priced at
£6,666.
Anyway, back to the Occult edition.
The paper is thick, and there’s no bleed
through, but it’s otherwise fairly standard.
Each chapter has a separate page title, and
various additional illustrations and graphics
are included as page headings.
The apple motif is cleverly used, opening
with a snake wrapped around a whole apple,
then a small bite has been taken out of it,
and by the end of the book, only the core
remains.
Chapters open with gold-coloured dropped cap
titles, and the text is liberally sprinkled
with red batwing and gold angelwing hourglass
motifs throughout.
The Occult edition has 19 colour plates, 7
more than were included in the standard illustrated
edition, and includes some really gorgeous
double plates as well as beautifully detailed
illustrations to enjoy mulling over.
My only quibble would be that some of the
illustrations are included out of order.
The text has been revised by Neil Gaiman and
the Pratchett estate to clear up errors from
previous editions, and this edition makes
use of different fonts to add to its charm.
Fun fact: the artwork for this illustration
of the Mona Lisa by Paul Kidby was actually
included in the TV series – you can see
it on Crowley’s wall in some of the scenes.
Overall, I’m really pleased with this edition
and think they’ve done really lovely job
on it.
The book was released in July, and I’ve
seen numbers in the wild that are already
about halfway through the limitation a month
later, so I expect it will not stay in print
for too long.
Links below to where you can buy it, as well
as a page on my website which has a few more
collectible Good Omens books if you’re interested.
Thanks for watching and bye til next time!
