Crop of Earthsea artwork by Charles Vess

In 2018, Saga Press will publish all six of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea novels in one volume, to mark the 50th anniversary of her landmark fantasy series. What’s more, The Books of Earthsea will be the first fully illustrated edition, with the cover and both color and black-and-white interior illustrations (including chapter headings, full-page illustrations, and smaller pictures) by Charles Vess.

Along with the six Earthsea novels, The Books of Earthsea will collect a number of Earthsea stories, including “The Word of Unbinding” and “The Rule of Names,” as well as the new, never-before-published-in-print “The Daughter of Odren.”

Le Guin announced the news on her blog, praising her collaboration with Vess: An artist of his standing, she writes, “can legitimately expect autonomy—to find and follow his own vision of the text without seeking any input from the writer.” But, to her incredulous relief, he reached out over email for her input—and so they have used the medium to hammer out what exactly an Earthsea dragon looks like. Le Guin writes about sending Vess “an email full of whines and niggles and what-if-you-trieds-such-and-suches. I realize how inadequate are my attempts to describe in words the fierce and beautiful being I see so clearly.” But as the emails continue, “[p]atient as Job, grimy with graphite,” Vess visualizes the dragon that Le Guin describes.

Vess shared a series of sketches on his Facebook, including one illustration from each of the novels, as well as the frontispiece art:

The frontispiece for Tehanu was where things began to really crystallize, according to Le Guin:

And here’s a look at the wraparound cover art (click to enlarge):

Vess told us: