News
Scribe and Liveright to publish Duncan Fyfe’s brilliant historical debut, Henry Goodwolf
13th October, 2026
Swift Press and Liveright, an imprint at Norton, are to publish the debut novel by writer and video game-designer Duncan Fyfe after publisher Mark Richards bought UK & Commonwealth rights from Jack Fogg at DunnFogg; US rights meanwhile were sold to Gina Iaquinta at Liveright in a six-figure deal through Alex Kane at Calligraph. Film, TV and theatre rights are being handled by Penelope Killick at The Artists Partnership. Henry Goodwolf will publish in spring 2028.
‘On a remote and windswept island off the coast of Scotland, a small community of Benedictine monks is being picked off, one by one, by a creature of the deep. Into the besieged priory arrives Henry Goodwolf, monster-hunter of legend and the monks’ last hope. But legends can be deceiving: Goodwolf is not the man, nor monster hunter, he is reputed to be, and the monks are not sure whether he will save them, damn them or lead them to their graves.’
Richards said: ‘Henry Goodwolf is a stylishly written and very funny novel about, at heart, two very different people – Brother Achardus, a pious and dithering priory chamberlain, and Henry Goodwolf, a thrillingly profane monster-hunter. Around this unlikely pair develops a brilliantly off-beat novel, set at a time when the line between reality and fancy was thin.’
Fyfe said: ‘I’m a big fan of medieval monks who had to illustrate manuscripts and bestiaries with creatures they had never seen and in some cases did not exist. Imagining from poems and songs what a lion might look like, they would draw a large and yellow man, nude and very hairy, with a long pink tongue. The image is farcical and yet a sincere representation of the most terrible horror that the minds of these men could then conceive.
‘With Henry Goodwolf, I wanted a novel that lived in that balance, where we find men of the Dark Ages at a time of crisis, not really getting it right but definitely trying their best. I am so thankful to Mark and Gina, and the brilliant teams at Swift and Liveright, for believing in this. I really look forward to working with them to bring Henry Goodwolf into the daylight.’