T.N.Foulis: The History and Bibliography of an Edinburgh Publishing House

London: Werner Shaw Limited. Very Good/Very Good. 1998. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo Unclipped cream dustjacket slightly soiled. Brown cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine and upper cover. No ownership inscription. ix, 267 pages clean and tight. The publishers T N Foulis, operating from Edinburgh and London, published more than 400 titles during the period 1904-25. The vast majority of their books were produced to the most exacting of standards. The hallmarks of a Foulis book in the form of coloured buckram bindings, tipped-in colour plates, the elegant Auriol typeface and rose-watermarked paper have, in recent times, drawn collectors to these elegant volumes. Today, such features are virtually unheard of in a world of generally uniform book production and, once handled, any true bibliophile must find it difficult to put down a Foulis book. From the handsome classics sturdily bound in buckram to the charming so-called envelope books developed in the first decade of the century essentially as gift books, the Foulis output is quite unique and they are now increasingly sought after. Although it is still easy to obtain a handsomely produced copy of the publisher's bestselling Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Dean Ramsay, well preserved copies of the charming and fragile envelope books, many of them illustrated by artists of the calibre of Jessie M King, W Russell Flint, Frank Brangwyn and F Cayley Robinson, are now very difficult to find. The authors - both longstanding collectors of T N Foulis - have faced many complexities in preparing this history and bibliography. The publisher Thomas Noble Foulis, born and raised in Edinburgh, represents something of an enigma, dying in obscurity in Essex after the failure of the firm to which he devoted himself so wholeheartedly. Foulis listed, in catalogues and advertisements, many books which were never published. Those which were published appeared in many, puzzling variants of binding and format, sometimes in different series from those announced and in very small editions. Descendants of Thomas Foulis have no records today of their now illustrious forbear. No official records or letter books of the firm survive. All these circumstances have contributed to occasioning the authors much painstaking detective work. Between them, the authors have in their collections around ninety-five per cent of the titles published and have seen all the books listed in this bibliography. Ian Elfick has compiled the bibliography, whilst Paul Harris has written the history of the firm. .