Bloomsbury wins Constable’s The Instrumentalist in a seven-way auction

Bloomsbury has scooped Harriet Constable’s The Instrumentalist and a second book in a major six-figure deal following a seven-way auction. The debut historical novel has become one of the international hits in the run-up to the London Book Fair, with translation rights sold into 11 different countries. 

Publisher Alexis Kirschbaum and senior commissioning editor Allegra Le Fanu acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Madeleine Milburn at Madeleine Milburn Ltd; publication is slated for August 2024. Meanwhile, Carina Guiterman at Simon & Schuster will publish in the US and Iris Tupholme at HarperCollins grabbed Canadian rights. Many of the translation deals were from multi-publisher auctions, with winning publishers including Albin Michel (French), HarperCollins (German) and Piemme (Italian).   

The book is inspired by the true story of Anna Maria della Pietà, who was an orphan, musical prodigy and student of Antonio Vivaldi. The "Four Seasons" composer was long associated with the Ospedale della Pietà, a foundation that cared for abandoned children, employing some of its talented students as musicians—and muses. In the novel, Anna Maria is on "a mission to become Venice’s greatest violinist and composer, and in her remarkable world of colour and sound, it seems like nothing can stop her. But it is 1704 and she is, after all, a girl. The pursuit of her ambition will test everything she holds dear".

Constable is a London-based multimedia journalist, documentary maker, grantee of the Pulitzer Center and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She said: "I grew up playing and listening to classical music with my family. Yet I had never heard of Anna Maria or any of the remarkable musicians that grew up in Venice’s Pietà. When I learned that we have a collection of disabled, disfigured orphans to thank for the most famous piece of classical music in the world, ’The Four Seasons’, I knew I had found the debut I wanted to write."

Le Fanu said: "The whole team here were captivated by Anna Maria and her story, and I know the world will be too. Constable manages to conjure the world of 18th-century Venice with such vividness, while masterfully exploring the timeless and timely questions of genius, exploitation, mentorship, ambition and flair."

Milburn commented: "Harriet is an extraordinary talent, showing us the roots of classical music as they have never been told before. For fans of The Queen’s Gambit and The Handmaid’s Tale, The Instrumentalist brings to life the remarkable story of one of history’s most important and forgotten figures, and will transport even the most unmusical of readers into a whole other realm."