Football manager Alex Ferguson, composer James MacMillan and historian Tom Devine are among the names who have been signed up to contribute to a £3000 book about Celtic.
Publishers Kraken Opus aim to have the Celtic Opus available by the end of the year in a limited edition of 5000 copies, each weighing more than 25 kilos.
Only 12 Opus books are planned by Kraken, who have already produced volumes on Manchester United, Muhammad Ali and the NFL Superbowl. The publishers have already rejected advances from several English Premiership clubs, but Celtic's fan base and history proved too tempting to refuse.
The books, to be released in three editions autographed by different club legends, will include work from composer James MacMillan and a tapestry by textile artist Jilli Blackwood, as well as insight from Tom Devine.
The Sunday Herald understands that Opus also hope scottish author William McIlvanney and Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson will contribute to the 850-page collection.
Kraken director Paul Murphy believes the Celtic Opus would never have been possible without the passion of Celtic supporters.
Murphy said: "Celtic are not just a club but part of the community, it's a defining factor in their lives. As a business you need to know if there is sufficient demand, but after speaking to Celtic it is clear there is. They saw the Manchester United one and straight away were keen to do something for themselves."
Featuring detailed interviews with club captain Neil Lennon and Scottish player of the year Shunsuke Nakamura, the Opus aims to produce an almost cinematic experience and will contain around 2000 images.
Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss visited Parkhead last year and took 40 photos including a collective shot of the Lisbon Lions. And a camera set to take a picture every 15 seconds will be positioned at Parkhead today to capture the feel of the stadium.
Scottish photographer Graeme Murdoch is in charge of selecting the images and has spent weeks trawling through newspaper archives at the Mitchell Library to map out the narrative.
"The historic moments embedded in a fan's head are goals and winning, but we want to capture the sad moments too," said Murdoch. "You need to step apart from this and have a little bit of light and shade."
Celtic View editor Paul Cuddihy said he would be intrigued to see the finished article. He said: "The first Opus book I saw was on Muhammad Ali and it was absolutely stunning, so different from any other book."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article