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HarperPress will publish New Labour architect Peter Mandelson's autobiography this summer after buying the rights through former HC c.e.o. Eddie Bell. Victoria Barnsley, c.e.o. and publisher of HarperCollins, bought world English language rights from Bell at the Bell Lomax Moreton Agency for an undisclosed sum.
An exact release date has yet to be confirmed however HarperCollins said the book will be "first published account by one of New Labour’s three founding members". Tony Blair's The Journey will be published by Random House on 2nd September.
The book comprises "detailed" diary notes Mandelson took during the events, discussions and meetings that helped shape the Labour party and its time in office. Mandelson began writing the book while he was serving a European Commissioner and completed the manuscript since leaving office.
HC said: "Frank, honest and revealing, the book will present a dramatic first-hand narrative of a historic period of change in British politics and will lay bare Peter Mandelson’s intimate, complex relationship with Britain’s two New Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown."
Mandelson said: "My book will contain a mixture of autobiography, personal reflection and political history. It will tell the story of a life played out in the backroom and then on the frontline of the Labour Party, and in our unprecedented three terms in government. It tells it as I saw it. Inevitably, much of the tale centres on the defining political relationships of my life – with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But it will also offer some of the lessons that I take from our period in office and in building New Labour, which I hope others will be able to learn from."
Barnsley added: "Peter Mandelson is one of the most influential political figures of the last 25 years. This is a book that he started some time ago and that we are thrilled to publish. Forced to resign twice, brought into government three times, he has had an extraordinary political career. So much has been written about the person at the very heart of the New Labour project, but this is the first time we will hear the unvarnished truth from the man himself. I predict it will become the most talked-about political memoir of the year."
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