Nell Stevens moves to Scribner UK in two-book deal

Nell Stevens has moved to Scribner UK in a two-book deal, which includes a new novel, The Original, and a collection of stories, The Good Time.

Publishing director Sophie Missing acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Rebecca Carter at Rebecca Carter Literary, and The Original will be published in hardback, e-book and audio in summer 2025.

“An orphan, a wealthy family, a disputed inheritance, valuable art, and a history of madness and confused identity: The Original takes pleasure in riffing on the 19th-century inheritance novel [...] this is a story of con artists and hidden queer lives that asks enduringly important questions about authenticity,” the blurb reads. 

Missing said: “In all her work, Nell Stevens writes about art, love and desire with a playfulness and skill that is genuinely unique. The Original is a smart, compulsively readable take on the inheritance novel that, in Nell’s hands, feels fresh and surprising. We are all thrilled to be publishing this new novel, and The Good Time, in which Nell brings her sublime powers of observation and wit to a contemporary landscape.”

Stevens added: “I’m delighted to be joining Scribner’s list. Sophie Missing is an editor whose sensibilities and insights I love; I feel hugely lucky to be working with her on The Original and The Good Time. Both these books have pushed me and my writing – towards boldness, strangeness, terror and pleasure – and I’m grateful to have my agent, Rebecca Carter, and now Sophie and the team at Scribner, by my side.”