W H Allen snaps up new Boris Johnson biography

W H Allen will publish a new biography on prime minister Boris Johnson next year.

Drummond Moir, group deputy publisher at Ebury, bought UK & Commonwealth rights from Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown. Ebury imprint W H Allen will publish the currently untitled book by investigative journalist Tom Bower in 2020. 

Moir said: “WH Allen are proud to confirm they have signed up Britain’s leading investigative biographer to write a new biography of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Written with Bower’s trademark access, insight and candour, the book will be published in 2020.”

Bower has previously written biographies about Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. His biography of Johnson marks the first time he will write a biography about a Conservative leader.  Through Nielsen, Bower has sold 389,330 books for £4.2m total. His bestseller is Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell (Faber), at 45,350 copies sold in hardback, but Broken Vows: Tony Blair the Tragedy of Power (Faber) is his biggest political title, at 26,404 copies sold. 

Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s Ruthless Plot for Power was published earlier this year by William Collins and described as a "forensically detailed portrait" of Corbyn by the Times, while columnist Peter Oborne accused the author of omitting "relevant facts in order to portray Corbyn as a ruthless Marxist and antisemite hellbent on destroying western liberal values." 

Bower's wife and former Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley served as senior advisor to Johnson between 2012 and 2016 during his time in office as Mayor of London. 

Bower's book will be the third major biography of Johnson following Sonia Purnell’s Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition (Aurum Press, 2011) and Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson by Andrew Gimson (Simon & Schuster, 2006).