Canongate to republish original Lady of the Nightingales memoir

Canongate will republish The Cello and the Nightingales: The Life of Beatrice Harrison, edited by Patricia Cleveland-Peck.

C.e.o. Jamie Byng acquired world rights to the book, which was was originally published in 1985 by John Murray, directly from the author. Due to become an addition to the Canongate Canons in April 2024, The Cello and the Nightingales features a new introduction by Maria Popova and a new afterword by Patricia Cleveland-Peck.

According to the publisher, the new edition "will bring Beatrice Harrison – the lady of the nightingales – to a modern audience in the centenary of Beatrice’s historic BBC broadcast".

The synopsis for the book says: "For in 1924, Beatrice Harrison gifted a miracle to the world: a wild nightingale singing in perfect harmony with her cello. Over a million people tuned in to hear the nightingale that night, and the BBC went on to broadcast their duet worldwide every spring until 1942. This transformed the public interest in nightingales – a species already in decline.

"If Beatrice’s duets with the nightingales touched a chord with the world, her own life proved to be every bit as musical, free-spirited and inspiring. From her early years as a musical prodigy to recording with the most important composers of the day, or playing for the wounded in the Second World War, Beatrice’s warmth and love for sharing music are as affecting now as they were to her original audiences."

Cleveland-Peck commented: "I am delighted that the story of Beatrice Harrison and her mission to share the magic of the cello and nightingale duet will reach new readers with Canongate’s reissue. I hope it might also inspire more artists to experiment with new ways of using music and nature creatively."

Byng added: "Thanks to Maria Popova and The Marginalian, Maria’s magnificent platform for celebrating great books and original thinkers, Beatrice Harrison flew into my life. Her memoir, brilliantly edited and retold by Patricia Cleveland-Peck, is a lost classic and it is a great honour to be republishing this book as a Canon, 100 years to the day since that first remarkable broadcast.

"Beatrice Harrison was a visionary artist and a gifted writer and I am certain modern readers will be as touched by this story as we have all been at Canongate."