NEW YORK -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's "thorough and candid" memoirs chronicling his life through the tumultuous White House years that included his impeachment will be published in 2003 by Alfred A. Knopf, the firm's top editor said on Monday.
No dollar amount was disclosed by Knopf, the flagship imprint of the Knopf Publishing Group which is a division of expected to exceed $8 million.
That would make it one of the largest in book publishing history, with the $8.5 million for the worldwide rights to a 1994 book by Pope John Paul II believed to be the current nonfiction benchmark.
Clinton's wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, reportedly received between $7 million and $8.5 million for her memoir to be published by Simon & Schuster.
"President Clinton is one of the dominant figures on the global stage," Sonny Mehta, Knopf's president and editor-in-chief, said in a statement. "And he has a great story to tell."
The widely anticipated memoir "will be a thorough and candid telling of his life, with a primary focus on the White House years."
Mehta did not state how specific Clinton would get, or whether he would include the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal which led to Clinton's impeachment. Clinton remained in office when the Senate voted against ousting him.
Editor Robert Gottlieb, who has worked with authors including Katharine Graham and Toni Morrison, will serve as Clinton's editor.
Clinton issued a statement saying he was looking forward "to working with Sonny Mehta and Bob Gottlieb, and the rest of their extraordinary team as I begin writing my memoirs." Calls to his spokeswoman seeking further comment were not returned.
As of Dec. 31, the Clinton legal defense fund had paid $7.4 million in legal bills for the former president and his wife, a Democratic freshman senator. Their total legal fees totaled $11.3 million, leaving a gap of some $3.9 million.
The book will be published in hardcover by Knopf in 2003, and by Vintage Books in trade paperback in 2004. Knopf acquired world publishing rights to the book, including pre- and post-publication serial rights, English language and translation rights, and audio and electronic rights, from who represented Clinton in the negotiations.
Random House is owned by Bertelsmann AG, the international media company.
Rival publishers were caught off-guard by the announcement, with an executive at one commenting "it looks like they (Knopf) did an end run around everybody."
