Atlantic Books has snapped up three “major” non-fiction titles by authors Sir Anthony Seldon, John Kampfner and Polly Toynbee.
Senior editor James Pulford bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, but including e-book, audiobook and serial rights, from Matthew Cole at Northbank Talent Management to Seldon’s Truss at 10, written with Jonathan Meakin. The book, which will be published in September 2024, highlights the “fundamental mistakes [former prime minister Liz] Truss made during her time in office”, and is informed by the access the author has had to sources.
Moreover, non-fiction publishing director Poppy Hampson bought UK and Commonwealth rights to Kampfner’s Why the World Does it Better from Jonny Geller and Viola Hayden at Curtis Brown, for publication in 2026. “John will bring us an urgent, international, lively and ambitious work of journalism that will offer much needed solutions for our future,” Hampson said.
Finally, group associate publisher Clare Drysdale bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Toynbee and David Walker’s The Only Way is Up from Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander. The book is described as “a reckoning with the state of Britain after 14 years of Tory rule”, and will be published in trade paperback and e-book in September 2024.
Drummond Moir, Atlantic’s managing director, commented: “Politics has always been one of Atlantic’s distinctive strengths and passions. We’re lucky to have several authors with an unrivalled ability to explain the complexities, absurdities and psychodramas of modern politics to readers, and are thrilled to be announcing these three new acquisitions at the beginning of a year in which politics will be front of readers’ minds and democracy will be tested around the world.”
