Bloomsbury buys Myers' backlist to support new novel

Bloomsbury has bought Benjamin Myers’ backlist titles from Bluemoose Books in support of the publication of his new novel The Offing.

Alexa von Hirschberg has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Gallows Pole, Beastings and Pig Iron from Hebden Bridge-based independent publisher Bluemoose Books. The news follows the author’s recent move to Bloomsbury which came shortly after his Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction win for The Gallows Pole, which has also now been picked up by musician Jack White’s publishing arm Third Man Books in America. Bloomsbury will publish The Gallows Pole in February 2019.

Pig Iron, first published in 2012, is a gritty account of the life of a young traveller living on a Durham estate close to where Myers himself grew up. Beastings (2014), won The Portico Prize for Literature and The Northern Writers’ Award. 

Pig Iron and Beastings will be published alongside The Offing in August 2019. Set over the course of the summer of 1946 in the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay, The Offing explores the friendship between an older woman from London who has connections to DH Lawrence, Noel Coward and others, and a 16 year old boy from the Durham coalfields. 

Von Hirschberg said: "Myers is a formidable talent and I am excited about giving these excellent novels a new life."

Myers said: "After a fantastic and fruitful working friendship with Bluemoose, it feels like a natural step to consider working with a larger independent publisher. There was only ever one choice: Bloomsbury. To find a new home for both my new novel and back-list with Alexa and her team is a dream come true."

Kevin Duffy, co-founder of Bluemoose, said: "Ben is an absolute star of a writer and it has been absolute pleasure to publish him. Lin, Hetha, Leonora and myself wish him all the best with Bloomsbury and to the new readers who find him, he is in my opinion the finest writer of nature and landscape in the English language."