Hodder builds on Broadway success with The Hamilton Affair

Hodder & Stoughton is publishing The Hamilton Affair this October, following the success of "Hamilton", the hip hop musical, which has grossed $61.7m at the box office since its April 2015 Broadway debut.

Anne Perry acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Hamilton Affair, by historian and author Elizabeth Cobbs, from Linda Biagi at Linda Biagi Management.

The book is a fictionalised account of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his wife Elizabeth Schuyler, exploring how they came to play an integral role in the founding of America as well their love story. It is said to be based on "years of painstaking historical research" and shot through with "sparkling, beautifully rendered detail".

The hit broadway musical, "Hamilton", by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is meanwhile earning $1.5m weekly in sales, having won 11 Tony Awards since opening in April 2015, and the show is set to open at the Victoria Palace Theatre London in October 2017. The cast album has also "gone gold", meaning more than 500,000 copies have been sold.

Perry said: "From the moment I first began reading The Hamilton Affair I was hooked: from its impeccable historical detail to the voice and characterisation of the brilliant figures who inhabit the book, it is a delight to read and a pleasure to be cherished from publication until the day 'Hamilton: An American Musical' opens on London’s West End... and for generations after."

Biagi said: "I’m over the moon — as is Arcade — that Hodder will bring this brilliant novel to life just as the equally brilliant play catches fire on the West End and captivates readers everywhere. Alexander and Eliza’s story is, indeed, the stuff of history."

Cobbs is a prize-winning historian, novelist and documentary filmmaker. She is the author of five books on American history and a winner of the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians.  Her film "American Umpire" debuts on public television in autumn 2016.