Announcements

Biteback Publishing has launched the search for its next Managing Director, as Publisher James Stephens announces his departure later this summer.

Described by Charles Moore as ‘Britain’s leading political publisher’, Biteback has carved out a distinctive position in the publishing world, achieving a series of Sunday Times bestsellers in recent years. The company releases 50-60 books a year across current affairs, politics, sport, history, social affairs and beyond. Having joined Biteback at its founding in 2009 as Sales and Marketing Manager, Stephens rose through its ranks to lead the business.

Mark Wallace, Board Director at Biteback Publishing and CEO of parent company Total Politics Group, said:

“We are immensely grateful to James for all he has achieved in a remarkable 16 years at Biteback. Under his leadership, the company has grown to become profitable, discovered new authors and chalked up a series of bestsellers. Driven and imaginative leadership is key to charting a distinctive and productive course as an independent publisher. We’re sorry to see James leave but eager to build on his success as we recruit the person who will lead the Biteback team to even greater things.”

James Stephens said:

“It has been a pleasure working at Biteback over the years. I can honestly say that no two days have been the same, and I have had the privilege of working with truly fascinating people and their books. I will miss my authors and my wonderful colleagues, but I’m hugely reassured to be leaving behind a group of extremely talented individuals and an ambitious Board of Directors and parent company that are determined to drive Biteback on to greater heights. I'm leaving to take up an exciting new opportunity, which will be announced soon.”

For full details of the Managing Director role, and to apply, click here: https://totalpoliticsgroup.bamboohr.com/careers

BITEBACK TO PUBLISH POWERFUL AND TIMELY SURVEY OF THE RUSSIAN WAY OF WAR

James Stephens, Publisher at Biteback, has acquired World English Language rights to The New Total War by former foreign correspondent, soldier and MP, Bob Seely, a critical survey of Russia’s approach to conflict, both in Ukraine today and throughout modern history.

Russian warfare has become the global discussion point in recent years, sparked by the devastating scale of the fighting in Ukraine and the Kremlin’s threats of conflict, including nuclear conflict, with the West. The New Total War is the essential guide to how Russia fights against not only Ukraine but the West as well. It is for anyone who wants to understand how conflict in our world is evolving.

This book is the result of over a decade of research and dozens of interviews. It has been written by a former British soldier and journalist who has travelled extensively throughout Ukraine to get to the truth of Putin’s modus operandi. It tells the story of how, under President Putin, Russia has combined two forms of twentieth-century fighting into a single, new way of total war. It shows why the Kremlin has been in conflict with Kyiv since 2005 and explains why it has been so determined to suppress Ukrainian independence in the face of the bravery and defiance of the Ukrainian people.

Due to its extensive tradition of creative thinking about war, Russia’s new way of fighting is also a guide to how authoritarian states the world over will challenge the West for global supremacy using both military and non-military methods. This book is, therefore, a warning of the style of conflict that will be waged against the West to undermine our beliefs, our power and our influence.

Dr Robert (Bob) Seely is a former soldier, foreign correspondent and British Member of Parliament. As a young foreign correspondent, he witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He first warned of a revanchist Russia in the mid-1990s and has written and researched it extensively since. As a British soldier, he served on the Iraq, Afghan, Libya and ISIS campaigns, where he witnessed the changing nature of war at first-hand. As a Member of Parliament from 2017 to 2024, he warned of the growing Russian threat to peace. Dr Seely has long been fascinated by the fusion of different forms of conflict, trying to understand them from informational, military and political angles. Additionally, he devoted a decade of academic study to Russian warfare for his Ph.D from King’s College, London. The New Total War is the result of over thirty years of expertise in Russia, Ukraine and modern warfare.

Stephens acquired World English rights direct from the author.

BITEBACK TO PUBLISH POWERFUL ACCOUNT OF THE HUMAN IMPACT OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE

When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Kateryna hung up her dresses, Oksana and Stanislav put down their lawyers’ briefs, and Oksen slammed shut his philosophy textbooks. Alongside thousands of their fellow citizens, they strapped on armour, picked up weapons and chose to risk their lives for the freedom and independence of their homeland. Many would never return. Journalist Tom Mutch woke up in Kyiv on 24 February to a world changed for ever. Making a fateful choice to stay and cover the invasion, he witnessed the forging of an ‘iron generation’ of young Ukrainians.

In this book, the first in English to cover all three years of the full-scale invasion, he recounts events everywhere from the frontlines of the Battle of Bakhmut to the Metro Station bomb shelters of besieged Kharkiv, to the halls of power in Kyiv, including meeting Ukraine’s battle-hardened President Volodymyr Zelensky. Despite being put on a Russian sanctions list and being banned from the country, he sneaked inside Kursk Oblast with Ukrainian troops under the Kremlin’s nose. The Dogs of Mariupol recounts the war’s most infamous encounters, such as the battle of Kyiv and the siege of Mariupol, but also explores lesser-known stories, like the defence of Chernihiv or the last stand of the Territorial Defence in Kherson.

This is not a just triumphalist account of Ukraine’s fight. It painstakingly documents the immense human catastrophe wrought on Ukrainian society and the divisions between those who fought and those who fled. It also delves deeper into events to answer important historical questions: could the Russian plan to capture Kyiv have succeeded? Did Ukraine make a fatal error by committing for so long to the defence of Bakhmut? And could this war have ended sooner, without the endless sea of blood that followed?

As we mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, and as talks between Trump’s United States and Putin’s Russia over a potential ceasefire continue, this devastating account reminds us of what is at stake for the people of Ukraine.

Tom Mutch is a freelance reporter who has been based in Ukraine since the outbreak of war. He writes for the Daily Beast and the New Zealand Herald and he is a regular guest on the award-winning Daily Telegraph Ukraine: The Latest podcast.

For more information, please contact Suzanne Sangster on [email protected] or call 07818 810173

BITEBACK TO MARK THATCHER CENTENARY WITH REASSESSMENT OF POST-PREMIERSHIP

Biteback Publishing has acquired a study of Margaret Thatcher’s premier emeritus years, written by Peter Just and released to coincide with her centenary.

The story of Margaret Thatcher’s post-premiership years is a tale of high drama and low farce, with, at its heart, one extraordinary woman. No longer in office but never really out of power, Margaret Thatcher enjoyed perhaps the most consequential ex-premiership in British history. British politics today largely reflects and is a consequence not only of Thatcher’s time in No. 10 but also of her later life and how people reacted and still react to it. It is as much our story as it is hers.

In her centenary year, this book will provide a radical reassessment of how Thatcher’s premier emeritus years have been viewed to date. Covering the four main areas of her work after Downing Street – philosophy, party, policy and performance – and analysing her continued and continuing influence on the Conservative leaders and Prime Ministers of all parties who followed her, it demonstrates why, however small the politics may or may not have got since 1990, Margaret Thatcher is still big.

Peter Just is a research associate of the Centre for Legislative Studies at the University of Hull. He has been studying the lives of former Prime Ministers since 28 November 1990, his research being published in the Journal of Legislative Studies. This is his first book.

James Stephens, publisher at Biteback, acquired world rights direct from the author.

Peter Just said: ‘Margaret Thatcher was not only one of the most impactful Prime Ministers the UK has ever had; she was also one of the most impactful former Prime Ministers the UK has ever had, shaping the ex-premiership just as much as she shaped the premiership. Margaret Thatcher: Life After Downing Street tells the story of Margaret Thatcher’s post-prime ministership: what she did, the reactions she generated and why, in the 2020s, she remains a political force.’

James Stephens said: ‘Whatever you think of her, Margaret Thatcher remains one of the most significant political figures of the past fifty years. Writers, journalists and filmmakers have pored over her life and legacy since she died in 2013. In Margaret Thatcher: Life After Downing Street, however, Peter Just has discovered an exciting new angle on Thatcher and her career: what she did after she left power. This is a bold, brilliant addition to the literature on Margaret Thatcher and will throw light on her enigmatic later days.’

Margaret Thatcher: Life After Downing Street will be published in July 2025, supported by a major marketing and publicity campaign.

Price: £25 hardback

ISBN: 9781785909207

BITEBACK TO MARK JANE AUSTEN ANNIVERSARY WITH JANE AUSTEN AND GEORGE ELIOT: THE LADY AND THE RADICAL

Olivia Beattie, editorial director at Biteback, has acquired UK Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to Jane Austen and George Eliot: The Lady and the Radical by Edward Whitley from Mark Lucas at the Soho Agency.

In October 1851, a chance meeting in a bookshop in Piccadilly changed the course of literary history. For it was here that Mary Ann Evans, an unworldly young scholar from the Midlands, was first introduced to the love of her life, the married critic and philosopher George Lewes. Encouraged and supported by Lewes, Mary Ann Evans went on to become the queen of literary London, famous under her pen name, George Eliot.

In nurturing George Eliot’s talent, Lewes drew inspiration from the works of his own favourite writer, an unfashionable author of the previous generation by the name of Jane Austen. On the face of it, Austen and Eliot had little in common. Jane Austen was a genteel spinster who spent her whole life in Hampshire, painting Regency-period domestic dramas with delicate irony and unfailing charm. George Eliot, meanwhile, was a radical intellectual who lived scandalously with a married man, travelled widely in Europe and sought to document with stirring realism the social upheavals of her age.

And yet, when George Eliot embarked on her career as an author in the late 1850s, the works of Jane Austen were at her side and feeding her imagination. Separated by time, circumstance and temperament, the two writers nevertheless had a vital impetus in common: to prove the value of a woman’s eye in a man’s world.

Packed with quotes from letters, diaries and the nation’s favourite novels, Jane Austen and George Eliot: The Lady and the Radical traces the surprising connections between two of the brightest stars of Britain’s literary firmament and, for the first time, shows how each can be illuminated by the other’s light. It will be published in March 2025, to coincide with Jane Austen’s 250th birthday in December 2025.

Edward Whitley said: ‘Jane Austen and George Eliot are magnificent authors who have given me a lifetime of wonderful novels to enjoy. On the surface they are such different writers, but when I came across the deeper connections between them, channelled through the extraordinary letters of Charlotte Brontë and George Lewes, I was inspired to write about how the lives and works of these two literary icons can illuminate each other. I am thrilled that my book has found a home at Biteback Publishing.’

Olivia Beattie said: ‘A long-time Austen fan, I’ve always been faintly ashamed not to have read more George Eliot – until Edward’s lively, accessible and fascinating slice of literary history dropped into my lap. Edward’s passion for his subjects is infectious, and I hope his insight into their worlds will inspire other Austen devotees to stretch along the bookshelf and take a chance on Eliot.’

Jane Austen and George Eliot: The Lady and the Radical by Edward Whitley

Published: March 2025

Price: £20

ISBN: 9781785909542