EDITH HOLLER, Edward Carey’s first full-length novel since 2018’s internationally acclaimed LITTLE, has been sold to Gallic Books. Gallic’s Managing Director, Joe Harper, acquired the UK and British Commonwealth rights to this ‘raucous, blistering, beautiful, and totally indelible’ novel from Isobel Dixon with publication planned for autumn 2024, accompanied by a ‘standout publicity campaign’ from FMcM.
EDITH HOLLER tells the story of a bright, inquisitive girl who spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. Fascinated by tales of the city she has only seen through her window, Edith decides to pen a play of her own: a stage adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, whose local delicacy Beetle Spread is rumoured to have been made from the blood of children.
But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar, imposing woman named Margaret Unthank, heir to the actual Beetle Spread fortune, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play – the one thing that is truly hers – from the newcomer’s sinister designs.
Edward Carey says: ‘I am so very delighted to be back with my beloved Gallic for my new novel EDITH HOLLER. Gallic have looked after my books in the most generous and ingenious ways, and I couldn't be happier to have a fourth book published by this incredible team.’
Joe Harper says: ‘We are thrilled to be once again publishing Edward Carey at Gallic Books. Teeming with a theatrical cast of characters and brought to life by Edward’s fantastical illustrations, EDITH HOLLER is a surprisingly modern fable of one young woman’s struggle to escape her family’s control, and in doing so, craft her own destiny. It is timely, brilliant, a love letter to Norwich, and will be adored by Edward’s many readers new and old.’
Isobel Dixon says: ‘It’s a joy when an author is given creative space by dedicated publishers. Edward Carey’s blazing talent and originality is in full force in this splendid book and I am so pleased that Edith and the Holler Theatre are in excellent hands with Joe Harper and the Gallic Books team.’
La Nave di Teseo have bought Italian rights, while Riverhead will publish EDITH HOLLER in the USA and Canada at the end of the month. See below for more on the pre-publication praise and Starred Publisher’s Weekly review affirming Edward Carey as a major literary talent.
About Edward Carey
Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator who was born in North Walsham, Norfolk, England, during an April snowstorm. Like his father and his grandfather, both officers in the Royal Navy, he attended Pangbourne Nautical College, where the closest he came to following his family calling was playing Captain Andy in the school’s production of Showboat. Afterwards he joined the National Youth Theatre and studied drama at Hull University.
He has written plays for the National Theatre of Romania and the Vilnius Small State Theatre, Lithuania. In England his plays and adaptations have been performed at the Young Vic Studio, the Battersea Arts Centre, and the Royal Opera House Studio. He has collaborated on a shadow puppet production of Macbeth in Malaysia, and with the Faulty Optic Theatre of Puppets.
Edward has lived in England, France, Romania, Lithuania, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, and the United States and now teaches Creative Writing at the University of Austin, Texas. He was awarded the prestigious Italian Fernanda Pivano Prize in 2016 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.
He is the author of the novels OBSERVATORY MANSIONS, ALVA & IRVA, THE IREMONGER TRILOGY (HEAP HOUSE, FOULSHAM and LUNGDON), LITTLE and THE SWALLOWED MAN, all of which he illustrated. His book B: A Year in Plagues and Pencils is a visual chronicle of a year in lockdown and has been published in different editions in the UK, America and Italy. LITTLE has been acclaimed around the world and has sold over 100,000 copies in twenty countries.
Praise for EDITH HOLLER
‘Carey draws on fairy tales and Shakespeare for a dazzling bildungsroman… [EDITH HOLLER] affirms the author’s standing as a major literary talent.’ – Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
‘EDITH HOLLER is that rarest thing, a newly written tale that feels as though it's been discovered behind the stacked stone walls of an abandoned estate. It’s eldritch, raucous, blistering, beautiful, and totally indelible.’ – Maria Dahvana Headley, New York Times bestselling author of THE MERE WIFE
‘A raucous romp through the world of early 20th-century theater, with its barrels of fake blood and donkeys living in the bowels of the understage to provide the muscle for scene changes. In ways both witty and dark, the novel brilliantly probes the distinction between drama and real life, audience and performer, actor and character. And the whimsical illustrations, all drawn by Carey himself, are the perfect accompaniment to a story about an art form as visual as it is verbal. A wonderfully strange and quirky tale about the power of penning and performing tales.’ – Kirkus Reviews
‘Edward Carey is an extraordinary craftsman, and EDITH HOLLER is a masterpiece. Carey’s prose teems with wonderfully twisted humour and play, breathing life into the spirits that haunt its gothic framework. It is that special novel that makes you wonder why there aren’t more like it. The answer, of course, is that there is just one Edward Carey. EDITH HOLLER is singular – a dark delight from beginning to end.’ – Erika Swyler, bestselling author of THE BOOK OF SPECULATION and LIGHT FROM OTHER STARS
‘Brilliant and shiver-inducing, EDITH HOLLER is a delightfully macabre achievement, equal parts Charles Dickens and Sweeney Todd. Through Edith’s keen eyes we come to know her family theatre and its many denizens – each a masterpiece of oddity – as well as the frightening newcomer who threatens to topple her very world. A bravura performance.’ – Helene Wecker, New York Times bestselling author of THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI
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