Bloomsbury wins Rio's history of the Dark Ages in seven-way auction

Bloomsbury has won a seven-way auction for Alice Rio’s "enthralling" history of the Dark Ages.

Senior commissioning editor Jasmine Horsey acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Dark Ages from Adam Gauntlett at PFD in a major deal. Rights were pre-empted in Germany and the Netherlands and have also been bought in the US and Spain. The Dark Ages will publish in 2025.

The book, which is the first trade title from the historian, charts the period in western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and is relayed through the experiences and histories of women.

"A time when life was ripe for reinvention—when it wasn’t yet clear what power meant or what Europe would become, when it was possible to be born a slave and to die a queen," the synopsis explains. "The Dark Ages will tell a new history of the period through those who often captured this sense of flux and opportunity most: women.

"Due to marriage, slavery or other reasons, the women of the Dark Ages often travelled vast geographical terrain and experienced radical life changes. Figures like Theodora, the daughter of a bear-keeper who became a Byzantine empress, and Balthild, a former slave who used her power as queen to try to abolish the slave trade, offer a rich portrait of the era that overturns conventional narratives of the triumph of a Christian monoculture. They allow for a new story to be told: one embracing a wider ‘Europe’, experimental and dangerous, ranging from Christian Ireland to Muslim Spain, from pagan Scandinavia to a little-known Jewish nomadic empire that once ruled the steppes of Central Asia."

Horsey said: "Alice Rio is a first-class scholar with a storyteller’s eye and her book offers a vital and enthralling new lens through which to view a period that is often misunderstood. It is an essential contribution, powered by the lives of some truly extraordinary women. I am honoured to be publishing it."

Rio is professor of medieval history at King’s College, London, and is an expert on the history of Dark Age Europe. Born and raised in Paris, she has published books and articles on law, slavery, women, heroic poetry and miracle stories. She is co-host of the podcast "Medieval History for Fun and Profit" and is currently on a Leverhulme major research fellowship.

"I’m delighted to be working with Jasmine and the rest of the team at Bloomsbury, and I’m really looking forward to bringing the story of this amazing era to a wider audience," she said. "It’s one of the most exciting periods in the history of Europe and also the most unfamiliar and strange: a crossroads full of wildly different emerging cultures, immense possibilities and multiple uncertain futures. 

"The reason I chose these very different women is that they all, in one way or another, also found themselves at a crossroads and experienced profound change in a very personal, intimate sense, but also in ways that are very revealing of the time and places they lived in. I hope this will result in a more inclusive, less predictable way of telling the overall story of that period. [It is] in many respects even more epic but at the same time more suited to our own times and the interests of a modern audience."