When we asked Allen Jones to work on Brave New World, he was intrigued. During his long and distinguished career, he had never before combined his imagery with a work of fiction. The book’s standing as one of the high points of twentieth-century English literature makes it an appropriate subject for an artist of his stature.

Allen has a lifetime’s experience of drawing, painting, sculpture and print-making. For this project, he brought the layering techniques of his screen- and litho-prints to digital print-making. This too is a first for him, and he has been working with Leslie Gerry to make his vision ready for printing. He has made twenty-nine colour illustrations, four of which are double-page and one quad-page; all five will be tabbed in to open without a stitched gutter. There are also twenty-four black-and-white drawings in pen and ink.

There is an episode in the novel where two of the main characters leave civilisation as they know it. He has marked it with a twelve-page section consisting solely of die-cut, colour images that carry the viewer along with them.

The bindings have occupied Allen and Richard Tong for a considerable amount of time. Rich says of them “Allen has provided a huge number of paintings and drawings for this edition, many of them very bright and colourful, and it has been my job to try and create bindings that work in harmony. This will be a very cool book and one that is extremely rich with artwork.”

At present, Brave New World will be published in two states, Roman and Numbered. The size of both will be announced after registration for Patron’s Rights closes on 18 May. We are also working on a spectacular Artist’s Edition that will be available at a later date.

The Numbered Edition will be signed by Allen Jones and the text printed letterpress in two colours on Mohawk Superfine 148 gsm paper by Phil Abel and Robert Hetherington at Hand & Eye Editions. The images will be printed by Hand & Eye and Empress Litho. It will have 302 pages, 230 x 170 mm. Binding will be by Richard Tong at Ludlow Bookbinders.

It will be full bound in white goatskin with Allen’s artwork printed with UV-cured ink and foil-blocked.

The book will be housed in a solander box covered with two-tone dark red Dubletta cloth and lined with white Suedel.

The price of the Numbered Edition will be £530.00 exclusive of shipping. It will be available to Areté Patrons for pre-order from 5pm UK time on 19 May, and for general pre-sale from 5pm UK time on 31 May.

A long time ago, as a young fine art student, I would never have believed that one day I’d be collaborating with Allen Jones – Richard Tong

Allen and Rich have been working on the bindings for our forthcoming editions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

During his long and highly distinguished career, Allen had never before combined his imagery with a work of fiction, so when we approached him about this project, he was intrigued. The book’s standing as one of the high points of twentieth-century English literature makes it an appropriate subject for an artist of his stature. 

He has a lifetime’s experience of drawing, painting, sculpture and print-making. He has taken layering techniques from his screen- and litho-prints and applied them to digital print-making. This too is a first for him, and he has been working with Leslie Gerry to make his vision ready for printing. 

There is a point in the book where two of the main characters leave civilisation as they know it. It is marked by a twelve-page section consisting solely of die-cut, colour images that take the viewer on the journey with them.

The bindings have occupied Allen and Rich for a considerable amount of time. Rich says of them “Allen has provided a huge number of paintings and drawings for this edition, many of them very bright and colourful, and it has been my job to try and create bindings that work in harmony. This will be a very cool book and one that is extremely rich with artwork.”

The book will be available in two editions. Both will have 302 pages and a page size of 230 x 170 mm. Allen has made twenty-nine full colour illustrations and twenty-four black-and-white drawings. He will be signing all copies. The text and some illustrations will be printed letterpress in two colours throughout by Phil Abel and Robert Hetherington at Hand & Eye Editions. The bulk of Allen’s images will be printed offset by Empress Litho.

The first-tier edition

The first-tier edition will be half-bradel bound in dark orange and yellow goatskin foil-blocked in five passes with Allen’s artwork. The spine will be foil blocked in blue and yellow. It will be housed in a solander box that is full-bound in navy blue goatskin that is foil-blocked on the front board with a separate, two-colour design. The box will also contain a portfolio of five signed prints. The book will be printed on Liber Charta 170 gsm paper and its price will be £2250.

The second-tier edition

The second-tier edition will be full-bound in white goatskin. Allen’s design will be printed with UV-dried ink and foil-blocked across the front, spine and back. It will be housed in a solander box that is covered in two-tone red Dubletta cloth and lined with white suedel. The spine of the box will be foil blocked in black and white. The book will be printed on Mohawk Superfine 148 gsm paper and its price will be £530.

For future release 

We are also working on a large-format Artist’s Edition which will be printed in two colours from metal type. Gangolf Ulbricht is making us a special hand-made paper which will have an AJ watermark on every page. The book block will have deckle edges on all three sides.

This is a major undertaking and we will be releasing further details in due course.

Introducing our new rights system 

We are introducing a rights system for Brave New World and all our subsequent books. We are contacting everyone who has bought at least one of: the Lettered Edition of Benjamin Button; the Roman Edition of Frozen Hell; the Portfolio Edition of Words of Fire; or the Artist’s Edition of Death and Honey. They are being invited to register for the right to our future top-tier books, including Brave New World.Rights to second-tier editions are being offered to buyers of: the Numbered Edition of Benjamin Button; the Numbered Edition of Frozen Hell; the Roman Edition of Words of Fire; or the Numbered Edition of Death and Honey.If you qualify, you’ll receive a separate email with a link to a password-protected registration page. Registration closes at midnight UK time on 18 May and anyone buying Benjamin Button or Frozen Hell before then will be eligible for rights and will be sent the link. Rights to the top- and second-tier editions will be separate.From now on, all our books, including Brave New World, will be produced in editions large enough to fulfil all rights and for there to be additional copies for general pre-sale on the usual first-come, first-served basis. We’ll be sending another newsletter after registration closes telling you the limitations of the two editions of Brave New World. The public pre-sale for non-rights holders will open at 5pm on Saturday 31 May.Rights will belong to the individual, not to the book, so if a rights-holder sells a book, the rights do not go with it. Rights are intended for dedicated collectors of our work, and should a rights-holder decide not to take a particular title, their rights would come to an end and be offered to someone else.

Copyright © 2025 Areté Editions Ltd, All rights reserved.

We’ve just got some of the photos for Brave New World and we’ll be announcing prices and availability soon now. However until we do here’s some more photos. The numbered edition will be in a solander box! Rich took a photo of the books next to some of our other books…

Brave New World.

Coming very soon! Details of prices and availability coming in the next couple of weeks.

Some book teasers from Rich’s studio.

Rich and Allen Jones have created some really striking designs and craftsmanship for Brave New World. When Rich first met Allen at his apartment in London surrounded by art by Allen’s peers (oh look! A Warhol!) Rich took one of the paintings that Allen had done for the scene at the Mesa where Lenina was mesmerized by the indigenous dancers. He picked it up and said ‘this would look amazing as a wraparound cover…’. Taking the image Rich then did a series of tests to see whether he could actually reproduce it on leather. The final version was so detailed he could actually see a fingerprint from Allen produced on the leather! One of the rare times when Rich has an idea and it didn’t, fundamentally, change. Usually Rich would go through dozens of ideas before being comfortable with the final design. But this held him.

The second is the bradel binding teaser of the final colours that Rich and Allen came to. After a vast amount of testing of colours by Rich to get the right combination. What they came up with was absolutely striking.

Brave New World. The novel proved to be a massive critical and commercial success on its release, cementing Huxley’s place as one of the most important writers of the era. And is acknowledged to be one of the most important novels of the last 100 years.

And from the novel illustrated by one of Allen Jones’s images; ‘When Bernard spoke at last, it was in a small tired voice. “All right then,” he said, “we’ll go back.” And stepping hard on the accelerator, he sent the machine rocketing up into the sky. At four thousand he started his propeller They flew in silence for a minute or two. Then, suddenly, Bernard began to laugh. Rather oddly, Lenina thought, but still, it was laughter.

“Feeling better?” she ventured to ask.

For answer, he lifted one hand from the controls and, slipping his arm around her, began to fondle her breasts.

“Thank Ford,” she said to herself, “he’s all right again.”

Some reveals of the interiors! For the last, nearly, three years this book has been a labour of love for all of us, myself, Rich and Phil. Allen Jones has been such a pleasure to work with, a major historical artist who has really worked with the text. Here are a couple of images of a book that Rich had printed digitally to get a feel of the book as he was designing the stunning bindings. It will be two colour letterpress throughout the whole book. From the workshop of Rich Tong:

1st: “ODD, ODD, odd, was Lenina’s verdict on Bernard Marx. So odd, indeed, that in the course of the succeeding weeks she had wondered more than once whether she shouldn’t change her mind about the New Mexico holiday, and go instead to the North Pole with Benito Hoover.”

2nd; Half page cut down. “But I like the inconveniences.”

“We don’t,” said the Controller. “We prefer to do things comfortably.”

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

3rd; Rich and Allen’s foil design on navy blue goatskin.

Apologies for the radio silence, we’ve been working on getting The Alchemist together for print and a secret project for Rich and Lyra and also various other books which will be coming out in the next year or so.

Rich has been working with Allen Jones and they have completed to design mock ups for Brave New World! It’s been said that the novel Brave New world is acknowledged to be one of the most important and prescient novels of the last 100 years. And the first time in over fifty years a Fine Press edition has been published.

‘Man is now the victim of his own technology’ – Aldous Huxley.

It is only fitting, as this Guardian article states that; ‘Allen Jones, painter, sculptor and print-maker … is arguably the first, debatably the most famous British pop artist.’ Be the one who is illustrating this pioneer novel for us. Details of the books release and prices coming very soon!

For your reading pleasure, Allen Jones! https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/mar/17/fetish-furniture-hampered-career-allen-jones-kate-moss

In the novel Brave New World we are introduced to the main protagonists, to Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, who is popular and sexually desirable and Bernard Marx, a psychologist, who is not. Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina outside the World State to a Savage Reservation in New Mexico, in which the two observe natural-born people, disease, the ageing process, other languages, and religious lifestyles for the first time. The culture of the village folk resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Hopi and Zuni. This precipitates the crisis amongst both the protagonists and the ‘Brave New World’.

Allen Jones wanted to mark the transition between the worlds visually. He came up with this section of prints with cutouts so when you turned the page it revealed the journey from one society to another! The idea of seeing this inside the book blew us all away. The movie cannot reproduce the extraordinary experience that the prints enhance of leaving the modern world to the ‘primitive’ society that the protagonists enter. It offered the reader a real visual transition from one world to another. These are the prototype prints.

This is a shaky video! But hopefully will give you an idea of what will be an extraordinary section of the book.

BRAVE NEW WORLD is one of the most important novels of the 20th century.

Finally, a Fine Letterpress edition of Brave New World! Coming soon from ARETE EDITIONS.

‘Man is now the victim of his own technology’ – Aldous Huxley.

‘It’s possible to argue that Huxley got more right than his fellow dystopian, George Orwell. That was definitely the opinion of the great SF writer JG Ballard. Ballard said: “Huxley’s greatest novel, Brave New World , is a far shrewder guess at the likely shape of a future tyranny than Orwell’s vision of Stalinist terror in Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

The crucial point for Ballard was that Huxley described a world in which humanity welcomed its enslavement. In Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Big Brother is an oppressor, stamping a boot forever on a human face. In Brave New World, thanks to mood-altering drugs, the distractions of mass media technology, and ready access to sexual gratification, most people don’t even realise that they have no freedom. In this society, discontent is quelled by advertising, medication, sex and entertainment. Which really does sound quite familiar. So familiar (Huxley also describes such modern-seeming phenomena as test-tube babies and Virtual Reality cinema) that it’s hard to believe Brave New World was written in the early 1930s’ (BBC Dangerous visions).

Brave New World is an astonishingly prescient novel, foretelling advances in each of these areas that were as much as a half-century away.

Set in London in 2540, the 7th century After Ford, Brave New World presents a future in which genetically engineered babies are produced on assembly lines, the social and economic divide between the haves and the have nots is legally enforced and discontent is quelled by advertising, medication, sex and entertainment.

The novel proved to be a massive critical and commercial success, cementing Huxley’s place as one of the most important writers of the era. And it is also acknowledged to be one of the most important novels of the last 100 years.

We have, for the last two and a half years, been working with one of the pioneers of the ‘Pop Art’ movement of the ‘60’s; Allen Jones. Known for his brightly coloured paintings, prints and, sometimes infamous, sculptures, he is one of the last living artists from that time. Allen has produced over 20 colour prints and many black and white images for Arete’s Brave New World. Concentrating on the human relationships and the characters in his own unique voice, Allen Jones has managed to find a vision of the book not explored before.

We feel he has created an extraordinary book. Rich Tong, a long admirer of Allen’s paintings since his art school days, has been thrilled to work with the artist for the last year creating a book which is also a piece of art!

Something Rich and I did earlier in the year!

https://www.facebook.com/lyrasbooks/posts/pfbid037iDyppoSLqEzMgav4HKLnVRYkCgUfRkb8UYUth6khzkKoBsnwGCo6GnE72eANKyHl

News from Rich!!!

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