Waterstones tips new O'Farrell novel as 'most anticipated book of the year'

Tinder Press has announced a new novel from Women’s Prize-winner Maggie O’Farrell, already heralded by Waterstones as "the most eagerly anticipated novel of the year".

Publisher Mary-Anne Harrington acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Marriage Portrait from Victoria Hobbs at A M Heath in a previous deal. It will publish on 1st September.  

The Marriage Portrait is O’Farrell’s ninth novel and centres on the short life of Lucrezia de’ Medici, whose death a year into her marriage to Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, inspired Robert Browning’s most famous poem, “My Last Duchess”. Although the cause of Lucrezia’s death in 1561 was officially given as "putrid fever" there was considerable speculation at the time that the duke in fact murdered his young wife. O’Farrell has used the mystery surrounding Lucrezia’s death as the catalyst for her new novel. 

Harrington said: “When Maggie first shared some early chapters of a novel in progress about Lucrezia de’ Medici, I was completely electrified. This is the story of an educated, artistic young woman who grows up at the heart of Italian Renaissance, and who is married, at 15, to a man almost twice her age, who she has barely met. Arriving at a court where she knows no one, she finds life as the Duchess of Ferrara is fraught with danger, and that her charming, sophisticated husband is also a man who rules through fear.” 

O’Farrell said: “I have always loved Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue, ’My Last Duchess’ – in which a duke pulls back a curtain to reveal his wife’s portrait, while confidently relating how he murdered her – but it suddenly struck me one day that it might have been based on real events. Who was this duchess who paid a terrible price for displeasing her husband? It didn’t take me long to track down the image, attributed to Bronzino, of a young girl with a dark-eyed gaze and a slightly troubled expression. I knew the instant I saw her that I would write about her. Very little is known about the real Lucrezia – her life was brief and mostly undocumented. In writing The Marriage Portrait, I hoped to tell her side of the story, to bring her out from behind Browning’s curtain and into the light.” 

The news of a new book from O’Farrell has excited booksellers, with Waterstones head of fiction Bea Carvalho predicting it to be “the most eagerly anticipated novel of the year” which signifies an “exciting autumn” for bookshops. 

Hamnet won the Women’s Prize in 2020 and was also named Waterstones Book of the Year. Carvalho said its success “introduced Maggie O’Farrell’s wonderful writing to a whole new audience and cemented her reputation as one of the best and brightest writers at work today”.  

Carvalho added: “It is therefore with immense excitement that we receive the news of Maggie’s upcoming novel The Marriage Portrait. It is set to be the most eagerly anticipated novel of the year by readers and booksellers alike, and its announcement signifies an exciting autumn ahead for bookshops. We cannot wait to read it, and to share it with our customers." 

O’Farrell has sold 1.9 million books for £14m since 1998, with Hamnet selling 307,189 copies in paperback and scoring her first weekly number one in the Total Consumer Market. The hardback was published during the first lockdown, when there was a lack of sales data, but it is still her biggest selling hardback to date.