...30 years after the first

Adrian Edmondson has written his second adult novel – a family saga set on a farm on the North York Moors – 30 years after his first.

The Ballad Of Seth And Eliza will be published in April 2027, and follows Eliza, a fading folk music legend, who strides out onto the moors one rain-lashed night with her life savings in a rucksack. She has a plan. But when she wakes the next morning, severely hungover, she can't remember what it was, or where the money is.

Seth, is her long-suffering husband who has been holding the family farm together for 20 years, but reaches breaking point because of all that Eliza throws at him.

Edmondson said: ‘It’s exactly thirty years since I published my first novel, The Gobbler. 

‘I’ve started several since, and despaired as they all fell apart around page 67. Then this story - this other family - grabbed me, demanding to be written, and I’ve enjoyed every single second of writing it.’

Edmondson has also written the children’s book Tilly & The Time Machinee published in 2017, and his autobiography Berserker!, a Sunday Times bestseller o 2023.

It was this week announced that his documentary series Sam & Ade Go Birding, co-hosted with Samuel West, has been commissioned for a second series by the 5 channel. 

The Ballad Of Seth And Eliza will be published in the UK by Canongate and Penguin Viking in the US.

It  is available from Amazon priced £22 in hardback – or from uk.bookshop.org, below, which supports independent bookstores.  

Published: 14 Aug 2026