S&S scoops Anand's 'pioneering' historic non-fiction

Simon & Schuster has landed Olive Undercover by author and political journalist Anita Anand. The book is an account of the life and legacy of a woman who was a galvanising force behind Edwardian Britain's social reform laws.

Ian Marshall, deputy publishing director of non-fiction, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Patrick Walsh at PEW.

Anand has presented television and radio programmes on the BBC for 20 years. She currently presents "Any Answers" on Radio 4, and is the author of Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary and, with William Dalrymple, Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond (both Bloomsbury). In 2019, she published The Patient Assassin with S&S, which went on to win the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. 

Describing her new project, Anand said: "The stories of women often fall through the cracks of history. While fishing around in those narrow, criminally overlooked spaces, you can find the most extraordinary stories. In my experience, none comes close to that of Olive Malvery.

"Born in India during the reign of Queen Victoria, Olive travelled to London with dreams of becoming a singer and actress, defying the traditional limitations of her “native” status and brown skin. Though Britain ruled over her own country and people, Olive was shocked to find starvation and despair at the Empire’s heart. Using her skills as a performer, she decided to expose that invisible suffering. Using elaborate costumes and make-up, and disguising her accent to mimic that of her subjects, in the early 1900s Olive became one of Britain’s first undercover reporters.

"She buried herself in factories, shops, markets and workhouses, often for weeks at a time, so she could expose the hardship endured by the most vulnerable in British society. Olive’s writing shook the establishment with its unrelenting candour and brutality. She held a mirror up to the most powerful country in the world and forced it to look at the ugly way it treated its own. She awoke the conscience of a nation, and was instrumental in changing laws. That she did this as a woman, at a time when they did not even have the vote, is remarkable. That she did so as a woman of colour, is nothing short of miraculous."

Commenting on the acquisition, she added: "I love working with Simon & Schuster, and together we look forward to bringing Olive Undercover out into the world, where she belongs."

Marshall said of the book: "Anita is brilliant at bringing back to life forgotten stories of important figures who have been lost to the modern generation. In Olive Undercover, she shows how it took the work of a brave Indian woman to highlight the challenges faced by so many in Edwardian Britain. She anticipated and helped build momentum for the social reforms that would follow a few years later, which heralded the start of the creation of the modern welfare state. Her pioneering efforts reflect issues we are still trying to resolve almost 120 years later."