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Hare today, Pet tomorrow: Canongate to publish second book by Chloe Dalton
Canongate has swooped for the second book by Chloe Dalton, author of the publisher’s 2024 Christmas hit, Raising Hare. Helena Gonda, editorial director at Canongate, acquired world English rights to Pet from Caroline Michel at Peters Fraser + Dunlop. Canongate subsequently sold US rights to Denise Oswald at Pantheon. The title will publish simultaneously across the UK and US in Spring 2027.
Dalton’s debut Raising Hare was a bestseller on publication last year and jumped back into the charts at the start of 2025. It was longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2024.
In Pet, Dalton will try to understand the origins and nature of the human-pet relationship "as a lens through which to reconsider our attitude to the natural world". The publisher explained that the book "seeks to inspire new thought on individual consciousness in how we perceive pets and their wild counterparts and question the complicated process of domestication".
Dalton said she was grateful to Canongate and Pantheon "for enabling me to follow the trail the hare has left for me. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to deepen my exploration of the meeting point between humans and the wild".
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The acquisition comes as Dalton is assisting on a UK campaign for the protection of hares. She will be speaking at a Parliamentary event on 26th March in support of a new private members’ bill urging the establishment of a "close season", banning the killing or taking of hares from 1st February to 30th September each year. The event is hosted by Baroness Helic and Lord Randall in co-operation with the Born Free Foundation.
Gonda said: "Chloe blew us all away with her first book and I’m so excited to see her expanding her focus here, beautifully weaving together personal experience with perspectives from science, history, philosophy and politics. She is such a special writer and this book acknowledges the positive ways in which animals can impact our lives, while considering how we best share our world with them."
Oswald said: "We could not be more excited for this next book from Chloe. It comes as no surprise that after revealing the profound ways in which a single, humble creature changed her life, she now wants to change in equally profound ways how we look at the animals around us – both those in our homes and in the wild. Her keen sensitivity and elegant insight into the natural world are undeniable."
