Sarah Watling's Noble Savages to Cape in six-way auction

After a six-way auction, Jonathan Cape has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Noble Savages by Sarah Watling, the proposal for which won the Biographers' Club's Tony Lothian Prize last year.

The book is about the four Oliver sisters, Margery, Brynhild, Daphne and Noel, Victorian progressives with links to the Bloomsbury Group, and the daughters of the Fabian Sir Sydney Olivier, governor of Jamaica.

It will offer "a vivid picture of sisterhood in all its complexities and rediscover the Oliviers within the varied fortunes of the feminism of their times", according to Cape.

Bea Hemming, deputy publishing director, bought rights from Tracy Bohan at The Wylie Agency, to publish in spring 2019 as a hardback, trade paperback and e-book.

Watling, who herself works at The Wylie Agency, holds a degree in History from the University of Cambridge and a master's degree in historical research from the University of London.