Look at the gorgeous images from A GAME OF THRONES: THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION!

Can you believe its been 20 years since A Game Of Thrones, the first book in George R.R. Martin‘s A Song Of Ice And Fire series, was published? The franchise may have exploded with the show debut in 2011, but the first book hit shelves in 1996.

Penguin Random House is celebrating with an illustrated edition of the novel with a gilded cover and 73 pieces of art depicting scenes from the story!

Vanity Fair has the first look at 10 images from the book, which made an effort to base places and characters off their book description and not how they appear on screen. One of the biggest challenges? The Iron throne itself. George R.R. Martin kept rejecting the artist rendering to the point where his editor, Anne Groell, stepped in.

“He finally said, ‘It’s 10 to 16 feet off the ground, with steps going up to it like a slide.’ I said, ‘O.K., nowhere in the books does it say that!’ It’s what I like to call the ‘invisible-head syndrome,’ that authors always think you can see into their head and see the vision that they’ve got. But if it’s not on the page, you’re not going to see it.”

Take a look at the images!