Aurum has acquired former bookseller Jon Woolcott‘s The Tattooed Hills – Journeys to Chalk Figures. Publisher Richard Green bought World rights from Joanna Swainson.

The Tattooed Hills will be published on 14th May 2026 in hardback, e-book and audio.

The Tattooed Hills is a series of journeys to chalk hill figures, the ancient and not so ancient carvings which are emblematic of English landscapes and have inspired writers, artists and musicians, as well as the people who live in their shadow.

It’s a history of these individual and surprisingly varied forms, but more than that it’s a meditation on the meaning of Englishness in the modern era, and considers questions of making, repair and loss.

Woolcott is a former bookseller and writer from North Dorset who has held senior positions in the marketing team at Waterstones, was a buyer and Head of Marketing for Ottakar’s and Buying and Marketing Director for Stanfords. He now writes for The Guardian, Slightly Foxed, Caught by the River and Echtrai Journal and works for the independent publisher Little Toller Books, and is editor of the online journal The Clearing. He is also the author of Real Dorset (Seren 2023) and editor of the anthology Going to Ground (Little Toller 2024).

Woolcott said: “In The Tattooed Hills, I visit the enigmatic chalk figures of England (and one in Scotland), telling their stories through my journeys, evoking their landscapes’ Spirit of Place, celebrating the specific and sometimes weird nature of chalk topography. I’ve always been drawn to chalkland and so I’ve had enormous fun discovering the meaning, curious histories, folklore and controversies of the figures. It’s really exciting to be working with the brilliant team at Aurum, whose publishing I have respected for years.”

Green said: “There’s a been a huge surge in interest in the British landscape and we see The Tattooed Hills sitting perfectly alongside Frances Lincoln’s Forgotten Chuches by Luke Sherlock and appealing to fans of Steeple Chasing by Peter Ross or Amy Jeffs’ Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain.”