Atlantic Books pre-empt ‘the book on poetry you never knew you needed’ by bestselling author of The Etymologicon Mark Forsyth

Ed Faulkner, Group Non-Fiction Publisher of Atlantic Books, has pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights in Mark Forsyth’s Rhyme and Reason: A Short History of Poetry for People Who Don’t Read Poetry from Caroline Dawnay at United Agents. Rhyme and Reason will be published in hardback and ebook on their Allen & Unwin UK imprint in October 2025.

Mark Forsyth was given a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary as a christening present and has never looked back. His book The Etymologicon was a Sunday Times Number One Bestseller and was followed by The Horologicon and The Elements of Eloquence. He has written A Christmas Cornucopia on the origins of Christmas traditions and A Short History of Drunkenness. His TED Talk ‘What’s a snollygoster?’ has had more than half a million views.

Rhyme and Reason is a quick, light-hearted and very funny tour through English poetry by bestselling author Mark Forsyth. Hugely accessible and genuinely eye-opening, it’s a history of English poetry from the reader’s point of view. In each chapter we start with the readers: who they were, what they read, and why they liked it. We have a kitchen-maid in Northamptonshire reading Alexander Pope, and writing poems back to him. We have a music teacher in Tudor times finding a love sonnet slipped between the strings of his lute. We have an MP walking into the House of Commons with a proof copy of Paradise Lost and announcing that he is holding the greatest poem ever written in any language. We have a young apprentice wasting his afternoons at the Globe Theatre.

Short, witty and very entertaining, Rhyme and Reason explains to the general reader everything they need to know to enjoy poetry. They will be introduced to all the great movements, and most of the great poets. They will learn the basics of English verse and how poetry works.

Mark Forsyth, says,

‘I’ve been writing a book on the antics

Of Donne, Milton, Pope, the Romantics;

To explain to the amateur

The iambic pentameter;

There’s a deal. Now the rights are Atlantic’s.’

Ed Faulkner, says,

‘Rhyme and Reason is the book on poetry you never knew you needed until now.  Mark Forsyth brilliantly demystifies and explains the wonder of poetry for people who feel they should understand it but don’t – like Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss did for punctuation. It’s an irreverent history of Britain through 1000 years of verse – as Unruly by David Mitchell did for English Kings and Queens; and it’s a fascinating and entertaining gift book that tells you something new about the world and should be wrapped under every Christmas tree – like his previous Number One Bestseller The Etymologicon.  We can’t wait to publish it and bring the joy of poetry to readers everywhere.’