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Hutchinson Heinemann has landed a biography of Cicero from classical historian Catharine Edwards after a six-way bidding war.
Editorial director Anna Argenio has acquired world rights to Cicero’s Tongue by Catharine Edwards from Max Edwards at Aevitas Creative Management UK following a six-way auction. The newly launched Hutchinson Heinemann imprint, a merger of Hutchinson and William Heinemann as announced in February, will publish the title in early 2024.
“In this gripping new biography, historian Catharine Edwards will breathe new life into one the ancient world's most notable figures and offer a fresh take on the end of the Roman Republic,” the blurb reads. “The book examines Cicero's life for what it can tell us about a turbulent society, in which longstanding tensions and inequalities were exacerbated by the wealth of empire, and ambitious generals battled to seize control and remake Rome. Cicero was more than a brilliant orator, his life almost perfectly tracks the decline and fall of the Roman Republic, and his actions and reactions to the rising tyranny of the world around him continue to fascinate today.”
Edwards is a professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London, where she has been since 2006, and is one of the world’s foremost experts on Roman History. A Fellow of the British Academy, she translated Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars for Oxford World's Classics, is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's “In Our Time”, presented a three-part TV series on Roman imperial women for BBC Four, and writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement. Her contributions also feature in the British Museum’s outreach events.
“In our own politically disjointed times, Cicero’s eye-witness perspective on the collapse of the Roman Republic acquires a new resonance,” Edwards said. “I am absolutely thrilled to be working with the dynamic team at Hutchinson Heinemann to produce what I hope will be a compelling, 21st-century version of Cicero’s life.”
Argenio said: “This is a period of history that I love, and Cicero is one of those characters who is endlessly fascinating and relevant to the modern day. With insight, authority and a storyteller’s eye, Catharine’s book will delight classical history aficionados and new readers alike. Her passion for this remarkable figure and the period more widely jumps out on the page, and I am honoured to be welcoming her to the Hutchinson Heinemann list.”