S&S UK re-releases Collins' bestsellers with high profile fans

Simon & Schuster UK will publish four new-look editions of bestselling Jackie Collins novels with introductions from high-profile author fans including authors Jessie Burton, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Veronica Henry and Helen Ellis next month.

Lucky, Thrill!, and Hollywood Wives will be re-published in e-book format and The World Is Full of Divorced Women in both e-book and paperback on March 21st. There will be new artwork accompanying each reissue and supported by a special launch event and celebration at Waterstones Gower Street in central London.

Lucky will be introduced by Burton, author of The Miniaturist (Picador) while Bradford has written an introduction for Thrill!. Meanwhile The World is Full of Divorced Women will be introduced by US novelist Henry with US author Helen Ellis covering Hollywood Wives.

The launch of these backlist titles is the first in a planned programme of re-releases featuring more famous names supporting with new introductions.

The Waterstones Gower Street event, also on 21st March, will feature Henry, Grazia's books editor and author Alexandra Heminsley, who worked with Collins in the early 2000s and Crystal Rasmussen, journalist and author of Diary of a Drag Queen (Ebury). Fans are invited "an evening of kick-ass female heroines, leopard print and glitz... to glam up and bring along their favourite Jackie Collins novel to share" with the best-dressed winning a signed novel, and tickets now available online.

Since her 1968 debut The World is Full of Married Men (S&S UK), Collins’ books have sold in their millions in more than 40 countries and she is one of the world's top-selling novelists, the publisher said. Collins died in September 2015, aged 77, after privately battling breast cancer.

Ian Chapman, c.e.o. of S&S UK and International, and a close friend of the author said: “Jackie was kind, brilliantly astute, with a wicked, mischievous sense of humour, and a consummate storyteller. She made her craft look easy, like all great practitioners. 

“We have long made a solemn commitment to ensure that her legacy endures and are incredibly proud to have the opportunity to republish several of her bestselling novels in a fresh and exciting way.”

He added that he hopes to “welcome a new generation of readers to her fabulous work”.