Written By: Sam Santiago
Long before it became a cultural lightning rod, "American Psycho" arrived like a razor blade wrapped in a designer label. Reviled, banned, dissected, and obsessively quoted, Bret Easton Ellis’s novel didn’t just scandalize readers; it held up a cracked mirror to late twentieth-century America and dared everyone to stare. Beneath the blood-soaked excess and pitch-black humor sits a deeply uncomfortable satire about status, masculinity, consumer rot, and the hollow pursuit of the American Dream. It is funny, grotesque, exhausting, and unshakable by design.
Now, the book that once sparked protests and moral panic is getting a presentation as striking as its legacy. The Folio Society has announced the first-ever illustrated edition of "American Psycho", pairing Ellis’s infamous text with bold, unsettling artwork by artist David Hughes.
This edition also restores the original introduction by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh alongside Ellis’s original afterword, framing the novel within its proper cultural and literary context. The Folio Society edition of American Psycho will be available February 3, 2026, at 4pm UK time, exclusively through foliosociety.com.
FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:
Famous and controversial even before its release, American Psycho stands as one of the most vilified and celebrated novels of the late 20th century. Both disturbing and thought-provoking, this darkly comic tale of a young man striving for the American Dream forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about identity, materialism, and modern capitalist society. Now, the Folio Society, an independent publisher known for beautifully illustrated hardback books, will release the first ever illustrated edition of American Psycho, featuring inventive artwork by David Hughes, alongside the original introduction by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh and the original afterword by Bret Easton Ellis.
Limited to just 750 copies, the 512-page special edition of the cult classic will include a box design, cover design, endpapers, frontispiece, and ten illustrations—five of which are double-page spreads—all created by the wildly inventive David Hughes. Fully bound in leather and printed letterpress on XX paper, the box will also feature a pinstripe lining containing Patrick Bateman's business card, styled exactly as it appears in the film, spelling mistakes and all.
“We at Folio have had great success with modern cult novels, and they hardly come more culty than this,” said James Rose, Head of Editorial at Folio. “One of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time, American Psycho has become more prophetic than ever as it charts the rise of narcissistic sociopaths in 1980s Wall Street—the sort of people we're now seeing at the top of US politics. Artist David Hughes is brave enough to tackle some of the more ghastly scenes, but always with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and a keen eye on the novel's satire. By marrying Bret Easton Ellis' divisive and dangerous text with David Hughes' funny and disturbing illustrations, this will be the perfect edition of the iconic and brilliant satire.”
The Folio Society edition of American Psycho will be available for £450 / US $640 from 4pm UK time (11am EST, 8am PT) on February 3, 2026, exclusively from www.foliosociety.com/american-psycho-limited-edition
For more information, follow the Folio Society on social media.