Picador lands rights to Isabella Tree’s rewilding handbook

Picador has snapped up the UK and Commonwealth rights to Isabella Tree’s practical rewilding guide following the success of Wilding. 

Picador’s Ravi Mirchandani acquired rights from David Godwin at David Godwin Associates for The Wilding Handbook, which is due to be published in May 2022.

The book accompanies 2019’s Wilding (Picador) which detailed how Isabella and conservationist husband Charlie Burrell turned a failing arable farm on Knepp Estate, West Sussex, into a self-governing wildlife haven.

Picador said The Wilding Handbook will offer insights into how Isabella and her family restored their land and advise readers how they can carry out their own rewilding project – from managing infrastructure to choosing the right animals for their land.

Picador editor-in-chief Ravi Mirchandani said: “Isabella Tree's Wilding, the story of the rewilding of Knepp in West Sussex, has spoken to readers across the UK and abroad. Its story of the revitalisation and resilience of the natural world, even in a part of our planet as heavily moulded by humanity as the South of England, has become a beacon of hope in a world full of justifiably terrifying news about our environment.”

Tree added: “So many people have written to us asking how they can rewild – from big landowners to small farmers, from conservation groups to gardeners to allotment holders, even someone asking how to rewild a window box. So it feels natural to respond with a practical guide on how to make your own patch wilder, how to kick-start natural processes again, how to physically connect wild places with stepping-stones and corridors – to bring wildlife back into all our lives.”

Since publication in March 2019, Wilding has been named a Sunday Times bestseller, former Waterstones Book of the Month, and shortlisted for this year’s Wainwright Golden Beer Prize for Nature and Travel Writing.