Delightful and intriguing are two of the most common words used to describe artist and author Nick Bantock's "Griffin and Sabine" illustrated novels, which began with the surprise 1991 bestseller Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence. Each of the books in the romantic saga is comprised of letters concealed in envelopes bearing postmarks from around the globe. The title characters reveal themselves through their letters and drawings, and though they have never met, admit to feeling an inexplicable bond with one another. Their attempts to meet--and alternately, find themselves in the process--carry the trilogy toward its finale in The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Continues, published in 1993. "Bantock's volumes are strange hybrids--part picture pop-up book, part epistolary novel," noted Entertainment Weekly writer Kelli Pryor. "Their appeal comes from the pleasurable sensation of reading someone else's mail."

Bantock had illustrated hundreds of book jackets...