Jacob Rees-Mogg’s The Victorians to Ebury

Apr 13, 2017

Jamie Joseph, senior commissioning editor at WH Allen, has acquired a popular history book on the Victorians by Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, set to publish alongside the 200th anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria in May 2019.

UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights were bought from Adam Gauntlett at PFD.

Rees-Mogg said: “Lytton Strachey in his book Eminent Victorians took the gilt off the era, it is my hope to be able to put it back again.”

According to the acquisition statement, ‘The Victorians will tell the story of an age through twelve pre-eminent British figures – from Robert Peel to Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Napier of Sindh – to paint a portrait of an industrious, entrepreneurial Britain, and ask what lessons this may provide for the nation after Brexit.

‘Jacob Rees-Mogg, described variously as a “backbench Bertie Wooster” and “the honourable member for the early 20th century”, is Conservative MP for the constituency of North East Somerset, and also sits on the Treasury Select Committee. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he now runs his own company, Somerset Capital Management, and frequently makes guest appearances on Have I Got News For You, as well as featuring in specialist news broadcasts for Channel 4. Recently, Jacob starred in the Channel 5 documentary, MPs Behind Closed Doors.’

Joseph said: “Jacob is a steadfast rock in the fast-flowing waters of modern politics and in an era of political populism and posturing, his quiet charm and eloquence stand out a mile. This book will be a riveting reassessment of the Victorians that sheds a new light on Britain’s role in the world and our future as a nation. It’s a tremendously exciting prospect and there’s no better occasion to publish that the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria – a day that is remarkably also Jacob’s birthday.”

The Victorians will be published by WH Allen in May 2019.