Chatto signs 'major reassessment' of 20th-century philosophy

Chatto is to publish a "major reassessment" of 20th-century philosophy and a call to arms for the modern world from Dr Clare Mac Cumhaill and Dr Rachael Wiseman.

Clara Farmer, publishing editor, and Becky Hardie, deputy publishing editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Metaphysical Animals from Zoe Waldie at RCW. The book is due to be published on 3rd February 2022. Kris Puopolo, executive editor, acquired North American rights from Melanie Jackson, on behalf of Zoë Waldie, for Doubleday, Penguin Random House. Deals have closed in nine territories to date.

Metaphysical Animals is a work narrative history, biography and philosophy that tells the story of four women philosophers – Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Elizabeth Anscombe – who were undergraduates at the University of Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors - and following fragments left by Viennese philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein - the four friends developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations.

The publisher said: "Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a vivid blend of philosophy and recovered history - bringing back the women who shared ideas, as well as sofas, shoes and even lovers. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends brought philosophy back to everyday life and a way of ethical thinking that is there for us today."

Acquiring editors Farmer and Hardie said: "As we increasingly understand the value of returning to key moments in history to look at them from a female point of view, it’s no surprise that we were captivated by this story of four women who thought so differently from their male peers. Comparing the quartet’s human-focussed ideas of what philosophy is and how it relates to the real world with the chilly abstraction of the male-dominated schools of philosophy that suffocated them has the power to change how we understand the world. What might have happened if these women had held sway and had become a philosophical school of their own? How might things have been different then, and now?"