Atlantic to publish Polly Toynbee’s new book, An Uneasy Inheritance, in June 2023

Clare Drysdale, Group Associate Publisher at Atlantic Books, has bought UK & Commonwealth (exc. Canada) rights to Polly Toynbee’s An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals from Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander. An Uneasy Inheritance will be published in royal hardback and e

Book on June 1st 2023 and in audio format in co-production with WF Howes, narrated by the author.

Polly Toynbee

is a journalist, author and broadcaster. A Guardian columnist, she was formerly the BBC’s social affairs editor. She has written for the Observer, the Independent and Radio Times and been an editor at the Washington Monthly. She has won numerous awards including a National Press Award and the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

While for generations Polly Toynbee’s ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble-rousers railing against injustice, they could never claim to be working class, settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism enjoyed by their own forebears. So where does that leave their ideals of class equality?

Through a colourful, entertaining examination of her own family – which in addition to her writer father Philip and her historian grandfather Arnold contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell, and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop – Toynbee explores the myth of mobility, the guilt of privilege, and asks for a truly honest conversation about class in Britain.

Polly Toynbee says:

‘Social class is a great national obsession and it lies at the heart of every family story. The hard truth is that Britain is a lot less socially mobile than we like to think. I write about that class divide often in my Guardian columns – but this book is different. This time it’s personal. I’ve written about myself, my own social background and what it means to grow up solidly, securely middle class for generations. Yet my family of radicals has always rebelled against their own privilege, sometimes with absurdly contrary and comic consequences. It’s awkward living comfortably with uncomfortable consciences.’

Clare Drysdale, Group Associate Publisher of Atlantic Books, says:

‘You may think you know Polly Toynbee, who’s been part of our media landscape for decades, fighting for social justice week in, week out in the pages of the Guardian. But did you know that her family tree includes everyone from Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell to the Glenconners? And that Castle Howard used to be the family pile? Polly excavates this remarkable history with one goal in mind: to explode the myth of class mobility in Britain. The comps are irresistible: it’s Hons and Rebels meets Nickel and Dimed, or Lady in Waiting with a social conscience, and we can’t wait to share Polly’s story with readers next June.’