Fireproof copy of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale was released in 1985 to critical acclaim: it was nominated for the 1986 Booker Prize and it won the 1985 Governor General's Award as well as the first Arthur C. Clarke Award, two years later. It was adapted into a feature film in 1990, an opera in 2000, and a popular television series, now entering its fifth season.

It is also one of the most frequent targets of those seeking to ban or restrict books. The American Library Association lists the title as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000” and, more recently, in 2019, The Handmaid's Tale was listed as the seventh-most challenged book. 

In 2006, in an open letter to a school district which attempted to ban the book, Atwood wrote: “First, the remark: ‘Offensive to Christians’ amazes me. Nowhere in the book is the regime identified as Christian. As for sexual explicitness, The Handmaid’s Tale is a lot less interested in sex than is much of the Bible.”

Today Sotheby’s auctioned an unburnable copy of the book, with proceeds going to support PEN, an organization founded a hundred and one years ago to “promote literature and defend freedom of expression worldwide”. The group recently released a report finding that 1,586 books were banned in US schools over a nine-month period from July 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. 

Against an estimate of between fifty and one-hundred thousand dollars, the work sold for $130,000 US. 

Publisher Penguin Random House announced: “Across the United States and around the world, books are being challenged, banned and even burned. So we created a special edition of a book that’s been challenged and banned for decades.”

The fireproof copy was produced by the Toronto graphic arts studio The Gas Company (who produced both my Sunset Strip and Morrissey books), with the creative agency Rethink. Made of nickel wire, stainless steel, aluminum and fire-resistant inks the edition can withstand a torching from a flame thrower, as the author illustrated over Youtube. 

"In the face of a determined effort to censor and silence, this unburnable book is an emblem of our collective resolve to protect books, stories and ideas from those who fear and revile them. We are thankful to be able to deploy the proceeds of this auction to fortify this unprecedented fight for books.”

- Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America

"Fireproof materials and processes were researched and tested by Doug Laxdal. The book and slipcase was printed, sewn and cased in by print-and-bindery master craftsman Jeremy Martin. The cover and dust jacket are printed on black-coated Cinefoil heat shield material. The text block is printed on white-coated heat shield material. These foil heat shield materials are used in film production to wrap hot lights. The photo of the book shows the slightly uneven and pitted surface of the foil. Opaque white and CMYK printing was produced on an OKI five-colour digital press, with carbon black pigmented inks. The text sections are hand-sewn with nickel wire, used in electrical components. The head and tail bands are woven stainless steel ribbon, used in aerospace manufacturing. The cover boards are 3mm phenolic sheets, used in electronics manufacturing. All materials were tested by fire during manufacturing to confirm these specifications."

- The Gas Company

"The Handmaid's Tale has been banned many times. Let’s hope we don't reach the stage of wholesale book burnings, as in 'Fahrenheit 451’, but if we do, let's hope some books will prove unburnable -- that they will travel underground, as prohibited books did in the Soviet Union.”

- Margaret Atwood, Twitter