Table Napkin Folding
An Elegant Art
The Victorians would not dream of leaving a napkin unfolded. They found, by one count, ninety eight ways of arranging one — and judged a host by which he chose. Table Napkin Folding revives that art in a form anyone can follow: a full page of clear, lettered diagrams for each fold, and photographs of the finished result on a dressed table.
Product Description
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Josephine Ive began demonstrating napkin folding long before she founded Magnums Academy, and Table Napkin Folding grew directly out of those demonstrations. First published in 1983 and revised for this edition, it remains a working handbook rather than a coffee-table book.
Eighteen folds are set out in full, each with its own page of line diagrams lettered a, b, c through to the finished shape, so you can see precisely where a corner goes and how the form is drawn up at the end. Interleaved photographs show the folds in place — on a plate, standing in a glass, on a Christmas setting — so you can judge which suits an occasion before you begin.
The book opens with a short history of the art and reproduces two pages from the Harrods 1895 catalogue by kind permission of Harrods Ltd, listing damask cloths and napkins at prices that will make any reader wince. Josephine’s preface is characteristically practical about which folds actually work in service: the Water Lily is charming but better holding rolls than at a place setting, the Bishop’s Mitre is the obvious choice when the vicar comes to dinner, and the Cockscomb doubles as a sailboat.
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The folds
​• Water Lily — Orchid — Arum Lily
• Buffet — folds to hold the cutlery
• Victoria — Roxburgh — Winchester Crown
• Double Swan — Cock’s Comb (the Sailboat)
• Fleur de Lys — Pleated Fleur de Lys
• Elf’s Shoe — Fan — Festival
• Bishop’s Mitre — Sail — Flute — Candle
• Plus the Christmas Fold and photographed settings for the Victoria, Cockscomb, Fan and Fan Variation
• And two pages from the Harrods 1895 catalogue​
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Who it is for
Written for butlers, restaurant and banqueting teams, hospitality students and function staff — and for
anyone who entertains at home and would like the table to look as though some thought went into it.
Most of the folds work equally well in linen or in paper.
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Publication details
​​• Title: Table Napkin Folding — An Elegant Art
• Author: Josephine Ive
• First published October 1983; this edition 1989, updated 2008
• ISBN: 0-9509187-2-5 — Dewey classification 642.7
• Illustrations: Bill and Maureen Carr — Photography: Bob Pendreigh
• Format: EPUB, 34 pages, fixed layout, illustrated throughout
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A note before publication
This ebook is supplied in fixed-layout EPUB format, so that every diagram appears exactly as printed.
It is best read on a tablet or in landscape on a larger phone, and opens in Apple Books, Google Play Books, Calibre and most other EPUB readers.
Still to settle before publication
The Harrods material. Your acknowledgements record that Harrods Ltd gave permission to reproduce two pages from the 1895 catalogue. That permission was granted for the printed book; selling a digital edition is a different use, and it would be prudent to confirm with Harrods that it still covers you — or to omit those two pages from the ebook if a fresh permission is not forthcoming. The count in the preface. Your preface refers to fourteen folds, but the contents of this edition list eighteen with full diagrams. The copy above uses eighteen. It would be worth amending that line in the preface so the book and the sales page agree.
Josephine Ive
Founder & Principal Trainer
Magnums Academy Pty Ltd