Picador buys Lee's history of Venetian Ghetto

Picador has bought an “enthralling” history of the Venetian Ghetto by Alexander Lee.

Publishing director Georgina Morley acquired world English language rights for Ghetto from Georgina Capel at Georgina Capel Associates for publication in 2023.

The synopsis says: “Acclaimed historian Alexander Lee’s absorbing book will be a comprehensive portrait of the Venetian Ghetto’s history, from the arrival of the first Jews in the Venetian lagoon to its dissolution by Napoleon – and on, down to the present day. It explores the dramatic events that shaped the Ghetto’s relationship with the Venetian Republic and sets the fortunes of Venice’s Jews in the context of wider developments in the history of Europe.”

Lee is a research fellow at the University of Warwick and author of books including Machiavelli: His Life and Times (Picador). He writes a regular column for History Today and has contributed articles on a wide variety of historical and cultural subjects to the Sunday Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, New Statesman, Times Literary Supplement, Atlantic and Dissent.

He said: “I am delighted to be working with Picador again – especially on a project which holds such deep personal significance for me. By bringing the story of the Venetian Ghetto vividly to life, I hope not only to shed new light on a crucial episode in Jewish and Italian history, but also to uncover the origins of prejudices which continue to blight our society today.”

Morley added: “I could not be more delighted to be publishing a new book with Alexander Lee. His biography of Machiavelli, which Picador published in March, just as we went into lockdown, is a tour de force of scholarship and – crucially – vividly readable. This new book, the first history of the Venetian Ghetto in English for decades, promises to be even more enthralling.”