Beautiful books

Find beautiful decorative books to decorate your home from vintage paperbacks to complete sets, leather-bound volumes and coffee-table books.

This list includes world famous artists, specialist book illustrators, pioneers from the Golden Age of Illustration, children's picture books, a diary, and alphabet books.

Books have always struggled to convey the spectacular beauty of Rome’s Sistine Chapel. Until now. A five-year collaboration between the Vatican and two publishers has resulted in this luxury three-volume art book.

The New Naturalist Series is an on-going series of books published by Collins that focuses on natural history. The series, famous for its dust jacket designs, began in 1945 with Butterflies by E.B. Ford and more than 100 titles have been published.

The Grand Budapest Hotel was one of the most successful movies of 2014. But are you aware of the inspiration for this film?

Books of Hours were medieval bestsellers. Sandra Hindman, an expert on medieval manuscripts, explains why these books were, and still are, so important.

Art books are the perfect addition to your coffee-table or bookshelf. This list of 15 essential art books spans centuries, movements, and mediums. From Frida Kahlo to David Hockney, we've got books about every artists under the sun.

We scoured our vast selection of vintage books for the most beautiful dust jackets, and soon discovered that selecting just 30 was a nearly impossible task. This selection ranges from 1917 to 1969, and really is just a drop in the bucket. From abstract design to detailed illustrations, enjoy these gorgeous vintage dust jackets.

Explore AbeBooks' selection of beautiful rare bibles and learn the stories behind world famous editions.

Arthur Rackham was an illustrator in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in London in 1867. He began studying at the Lambeth School of Art at the age of 18, and soon found his passion and calling. The first of Rackham's illustrations to be published in a book were in 1893, in The Dolly Dialogues. Rackham never looked back. From that first publication, illustration was his career until the day he died at age 72, of cancer.

The Folio Society publishes beautiful books with exceptional typography, illustrations, paper, and bindings. They reprint classic texts, from Frankenstein to The Canterbury Tales, with eye-catching artwork.

Art Deco, which originated in Paris, is one of the most memorable of all design movements thanks to its modern feel and use of mathematical and geometric shapes. Oddly the actual label of 'Art Deco' was not popularized until 1968 when art historian Bevis Hillier published a book called Art Deco of the 20s and 30s.

The Franklin Library, a division of The Franklin Mint, was a publisher of fine collector edition books from the early 1970s until 2000.

The Limited Editions Club of New York was started in 1929 by George Macy. At 29-years-old, he was an avid reader who wanted to make his living from books. His business revolved around publishing beautifully illustrated classic titles in relatively small quantities with club members paying a subscription.

Penguin Drop Caps is a series of 26 rainbow-hued hardcover editions of literature's finest treasures. An edition for each letter of the alphabet, the series features authors from A (Jane Austen) to Z (Carlos Ruiz Zafon).

The Book of Miracles is perhaps not the right name. 'The book of biblical drama and things we don't understand' may be a better title. This beautiful book about a book is published by Taschen. It contains a facsimile of a mysterious manuscript from the 16th century along with two modern essays of explanatory comment on the history, meaning and importance of this manuscript.

Sandra Hindman is a leading expert on Medieval and Renaissance manuscript illumination. Professor Emerita of Art History at Northwestern University and owner of Les Enluminures, Sandra is author, co-author, or editor of more than 10 books, as well as numerous articles on history, illuminated manuscripts and medieval rings. AbeBooks posed a number of basic questions about medieval manuscripts and Sandra was kind enough to answer them.