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Henry Rosenbloom, founder and Publisher-in-Chief at Scribe, has acquired UK and Commonwealth (ex Canada) rights to After the Romanovs: Russian exiles in Paris between the wars, the new book by UK historian Helen Rappaport. Rights were acquired from Caroline Michel at Peters Fraser + Dunlop.

Based in Dorset, Dr Helen Rappaport is the New York Times bestselling author of several books, most recently In Search of Mary Seacole: the making of a cultural icon, as well as Four Sisters and Caught in the Revolution. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a specialist in imperial Russian and Victorian history, and a frequent historical consultant on TV and radio.

After the Romanovs tells the story of the Russian aristocrats, artists, intellectuals and former White Army officers who sought refuge in Paris after the Russian Revolution. It will be published in October as a lead title for the autumn season.

It opens with a portrait of wealthy Russians in Paris during the Belle Époque years of the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev and Stravinsky and goes on to describe how the fall of the Romanov dynasty in 1917 drove many Russian to flee the  tyranny of the Bolsheviks and head for Paris. Here, former princes could be seen driving taxicabs while their wives found work in the fashion houses and their poorer compatriots waited tables and worked the assembly lines of the Renault car factory.

Elsewhere, intellectual and artistic Russian émigrés joined the likes of Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein in the creative crucible of the années folles.

Sporting a beautiful cover designed by illustrator Jessica Cruickshank, the UK release will be backed by a significant marketing campaign, and POS materials will be available for shops.