Another auction, of a debut novel 10 years in the research and writing, was won with a bid of more than $1 million by Little, Brown's
Reagan Arthur. She beat out rivals from Miramax and S&S in the last round for
The Historian by Michigan author
Elizabeth Costova, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan's MFA program, which she entered as a 30-something mother of three children. The book tells of researches by a young girl and her father into the history of the real-life Dracula (actually a historical figure, Vlad the Impaler), which suggest to them that the vampire never died and remains a malevolent force to this day. Arthur bought the book for world rights from agent
Amy Williams at Collins McCormick and plans to publish next June.
