Penguin Press signs Clarke's story of England through 25 poems

Penguin Press has bought world all-language rights to Between the Lines, the story of England told through 25 poems by Catherine Clarke, a professor of history and English. 

Donald Futers, senior commissioning editor, acquired rights in a deal negotiated with Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown. Particular Books will publish the book in hardback in autumn 2025. 

Between the Lines includes poems written between 700AD and the present day. “Each one opens a fascinating and, often, surprising window onto a single moment in the nation’s history” the publisher said.  

“We encounter Cædmon, an illiterate cow-herd singing songs to his God; rediscover England’s often-forgotten first civil war, fought centuries before Oliver Cromwell; gain a glimpse into life below stairs in a grand country house, paid for by the profits of the East India Company; grapple, alongside the favourite poem of the mourning Queen Victoria, with the implications of new scientific knowledge for religious faith and consolation; and see how, in the post-War and post-Empire era, questions of belonging and exclusion have come to the fore amid tales of migration, social transformation and significant new shifts in the country’s relationship to the wider world.” 

Clarke is professor of history at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and visiting professor in English at the University of Southampton. She has previously worked with BBC Radio and Channel 4. This is her first trade book. 

Clarke said: “These 25 poems are time machines, transporting us to moments throughout England’s history. They draw us into close, intimate encounters with people in the past, bound up with pivotal national events and historical milestones. I also want to start a conversation about representation and the canon. Who gets to tell England’s story? I’m so excited to bring readers with me.” 

Futers said: “Taking us from battlefields to sculleries and from royal palaces to ships at sea, this is a celebration of the joys of history, of the power of poetry to give expression to private and shared experience, and of the varied, complex people who, over 1,000 years, have called this country home. Catherine Clarke is a serious talent, and Between the Lines is a spectacular work of history with serious popular potential, full of thrilling and unexpected details. We couldn’t be prouder to be publishing it on the Particular Books list.”