Pay-back time for publishers: authors forced to return their advances

This week, it emerged that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith was being sued by his publisher to return his advance. From Julian Assange to Amy Schumer, he isn’t alone...Though he’s fallen out spectacularly with his publisher, Seth Grahame-Smith at least has the consolation of joining a stellar club of writers whose deals for much-anticipated books were terminated. It emerged this week that Grahame-Smith, the man behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is being sued in the United States for breach of contract by Hachette, which wants half his $1m advance for a two-book deal returned. Hachette claims the second book’s typescript was eventually submitted “34 months” late, and was too short and substandard, “in large part an appropriation of a 120-year-old public domain work” (unnamed, but presumably 1897’s Dracula).Among Grahame-Smith’s new confrères are the 12 non-fiction authors including Elizabeth Wurtzel sued four years ago by Penguin USA, which sought to recoup the advances plus interest for books it said they had failed to deliver; Withnail And I writer-director Bruce Robinson, whose missed deadlines during his 15-year quest to identify Jack the Ripper meant his original publisher cancelled his contract and asked for its advance back (although he found a new one and They All Love Jack appeared in 2015); and the award-winning novelist and poet Vikram Seth, who was at loggerheads with Penguin after it... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-09-02 00:00:00 UTC ]

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Lit Hub Daily: June 12, 2024

What if Jane Austen is actually the master of anti-romance? Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey on how Austen’s rushed endings undercut her reputation. | Lit Hub Criticism Living with a literary icon can teach some incredible lessons. Cory Leadbeater on his life-changing friendship with Joan Didion. |... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-06-12 10:30:38 UTC ]
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Libraries as a Gateway to Forging Your Own Path: Jane Austen, Murder Mysteries, and Me

Jessica Ball, author of 'Miss Austen Investigates: The Hapless Milliner,' is hardly the only writer to profess a passion for libraries. Jane Austen, the heroine of her novel, adored them. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-23 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Meet the 10 best new novelists for 2024

Our annual pick of the most exciting debut fiction has previously tipped Sally Rooney and Louise Kennedy, Tom Crewe and Douglas Stuart. Here the class of 2024 tell us their storiesEach year since 2014, the Observer New Review’s writers and editors have read scores of forthcoming debut novels... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-01-14 07:00:20 UTC ]
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Hilary Mantel had an unpublished Jane Austen-inspired novel.

Hilary Mantel died last September at age 70, but a memorial service just this week revealed something of use to those who miss her words. The Guardian’s Saturday Paper will be publishing excerpts from an unpublished project mashing together Jane Austen’s works. “She was having the greatest fun... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-04-21 16:03:28 UTC ]
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How Jane Austen Almost Walked Away From Writing

If you’re a literary genius, you’ve got it easy—right? Wrong. Even Jane Austen, indisputably one of the greatest novelists in the English language, spent years struggling to be published and became so dispirited that there were moments when she almost walked away. The story begins with an... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-18 09:54:04 UTC ]
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Fun fact: Zadie Smith’s younger brother is in the bad Austen adaptation.

Today in extremely niche literary world factoids: in case you didn’t know (I did not) Zadie Smith has a younger brother named Ben Bailey Smith, an actor and standup who goes by Doc Brown, admires Taylor Swift’s writing ability, and features in Netflix’s new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-07-20 16:07:31 UTC ]
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Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’ is having a moment. It’s about time.

The Netflix adaptation is yet more proof of the long-overlooked novel's newfound popularity. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-07-14 12:00:30 UTC ]
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I Cooked My Way Through a Jane Austen Cookbook. Here’s How It Went.

I cooked my way through a cookbook inspired by Jane Austen's novels, and it opened up the world of the books to me. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2022-06-30 10:36:00 UTC ]
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Barbara Pym’s humor and stoicism are a welcome tonic for our times

Pym’s novels — witty tales of domestic life in British villages — have been compared to the works of Jane Austen. I see a link to Joyce, too. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-06-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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This Week's Bestsellers: March 21, 2021

Dolly Parton and James Patterson have the #1 book in the country with 'Run, Rose, Run." Plus 'The Wok' by J. Kenji López-Alt is #3 in the country, and another cookbook, 'Jane Austen's Table' by Robert Tuesley Anderson, serves up shortbreads and sensibility. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-03-18 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Jane Austen makes a cameo in a charming new novel about friendship and the literary life

‘Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden’ whisks readers to Cambridge, Wales and Venice, in the company of a delightful gang of scholars. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-10 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The Enduring Appeal of Fictional Sisters: A Reading List

There’s something about literary sisters. Siblings offer a unique, complex, and compelling relationship for novelists to explore, so it’s no surprise that so many novels have sisters at their heart. From Jane Austen’s loveable Bennett sisters in Pride and Prejudice, and Louisa May Alcott’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-08-13 08:49:04 UTC ]
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Larry McMurtry, award-winning novelist who pierced myths of his native Texas, dies at 84

He won a Pulitzer for “Lonesome Dove” and shared an Oscar for his “Brokeback Mountain” screenplay. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-03-26 16:04:07 UTC ]
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A new Jane Austen anthology series is coming to the CW.

It is a truth universally acknowledged . . . that the CW is developing an anthology series inspired by Jane Austen’s works! The series, titled Modern Austen, will tackle a different Jane Austen novel each season and reimagine it as six modern stories. Modern Austen’s first season will set Pride... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-13 16:26:19 UTC ]
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The Consolations of Jane Austen

Through the trials of new motherhood and the loss of a parent, Rachel Cohen read the English novelist exclusively. “Austen Years” is her memoir of the experience. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-07-21 09:00:08 UTC ]
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10 Eighteenth-Century Novels Everyone Should Read

Although it was the nineteenth century when the novel arguably came into its own, with novelists like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the Brontë sisters writing novels that are still widely read and studied today, the eighteenth century was the age in which the novel emerged as a... Continue reading at Interesting Literature

[ Interesting Literature | 2020-05-23 14:00:38 UTC ]
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A newly discovered portrait of Mary Pearson reminds us that the Austens were total jerks about her.

Long before Tinder, there was Jane Austen, warning your dates and their families that you looked nothing like your picture: in this instance, her subject was Mary Pearson, a portrait of whom has recently been discovered and acquired by Jane Austen’s House museum. Pearson, who likely inspired... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-07 15:55:45 UTC ]
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Jane Austen, Gritty Educational Reformer of the Working Class

From about 1890 to 1940, a half century of ultra-cheap editions of Jane Austen’s novels aimed explicitly at educating the working poor. Because these ill-printed and shabby versions of her stories never made it into the scholarly libraries that safeguard “important” editions, the hardscrabble... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-04 09:49:29 UTC ]
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The Clothing of Jane Austen's Novels

Hilary Davidson, author of 'Dress in the Age of Jane Austen,' explores the fashions of Britain's Regency period. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-11-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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