Folio Society has unveiled an exquisite new Limited Edition box-set of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classics The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments on 3 November 2026.
Released on the same day as the US elections, Atwood’s celebrated novels will be illustrated by Anna and Elena Balbusso, the multi-award-winning Italian artistic duo known as the Balbusso Twins, with an introduction by Atwood, and a foreword by Naomi Alderman (author of The Power).
Limited to just 750 copies, each priced at £535 / $835, Folio’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments will be presented in a stunning clamshell box, created by the Balbusso Twins.
Taking inspiration from painting, sculpture, theatre, cinema, fashion, graphics, photography, and engraving, the Balbusso Twins’ distinctive style combines traditional drawing and painting tools (including wide bristle brushes that leave visible brushstrokes) with digital methods.
The Twins’ illustrations and cover design for The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments is rich with symbolism. They have described their design style for this title as ‘a surrealist Nightmare’ and compare their illustrating process to the process of making a film: first reading the story, then selecting the scenes with the most compelling narrative points to illustrate.
For the slipcase and covers, the Twins utilised a minimalist graphic design, while opting for their signature mixed artisanal technique for the interior plates. Blending traditional painting mediums such as pencil, pen, watercolour, gouache, and tempera with digital execution, every brushstroke is completely handcrafted without shortcuts or filters.
Each edition will be printed at Grafiche Veneziane, Venice’s oldest book printer, before travelling out of the medieval city by Gondola, and being bound in leather at Italian book-binder, Graphicom.
First published in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale has become an international bestseller, selling millions of copies, with its sequel, The Testaments, named the winner of the Booker Prize in 2019. Both novels have become cultural touchstones, and have been adapted into hit TV shows.
In her introduction, Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments observes:
“The Handmaid’s Tale is a very visual book. Those who lack power always see more than they say. It’s fitting that the illustrations in this Folio edition echo both the feel and the colour palette of the thirties and forties, the age of the rise of the major dictatorships – and the signage and branding, as it were, of the future Gilead, which has an equal interest in propaganda and presentation coupled with its North American knack for catchy slogans.”
The Folio Society’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments will be available exclusively from foliosociety.com from 3 November 2026.
