The Bridge Street Press swoops for Ben Wilson’s Coastlines 

The Bridge Street Press, the literary non-fiction imprint at Little, Brown, has acquired world rights to Ben Wilson’s Coastlines: A Four-Billion Year Journey Along the World’s Seashores in a major six-figure pre-empt for release in September 2026.

Publisher Sameer Rahim bough the title from Clare Conville at C&W. Wilson is a historian who previous books include a history of the navy, Empire of the Deep (W&N), and a history of cities, Metropolis (Vintage) released in the US by Doubleday as Urban Jungle. His look at indvidual freedoms, What Price Liberty? (Faber), won the 2009 Somerset Maugham Award.   

Coastlines “weaves history, anthropology, science, and ecology into a stunning narrative, introducing us to our earliest semi-aquatic ancestors, Venetian princes, Barbary pirates and saucy seaside tourists among a host of exceptional characters and unexplored communities”, the publisher said.  

Rahim said: “I have been following Ben’s career since his first book and have been impressed by his extraordinary range and beautiful writing. Coastlines is his most personal work to date beginning with the Essex coastline he knows so well – but also his most universal, ranging from the Gulf of Maine in the US to the Torres Straits in Australian and the south-eastern tip of South Africa.” 

Jessica Purdue, Little, Brown rights director, described the work as “the most exciting non-fiction project we have seen this year”.