A free issue of a special edition of the Times Literary Supplement will be available for visitors to the 67th Times/Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival from October 7-16.

There are more than 600 events being held during the 10-day literary extravaganza. Top names include Oscar-winning film director Oliver Stone and illusionist Derren Brown.

Highlights of the 32-page free Cheltenham issue include TLS classics editor Mary Beard on the rise of the modern demagogue; AN Wilson looking at the poet-artist of the Somme; Yrsa Sigurdardottir on the rise of Nordic noir and Michael Caines writing about Cheltenham’s literary past.

Outlets for the Cheltenham special, produced in association with Penguin, include Cheltenham hotels, TLS events at the festival, the TLS tent at Cheltenham’s Montpellier Gardens and even Paddington rail station as some festival visitors set off from London. The print run is 55,000 copies.

TLS Editor Stig Abell said:

In our 114 years of celebrating, examining and occasionally huffing over the great cultural and literary artefacts of the time, we have never produced a bespoke edition of the TLS for an occasion, a festival or an entire town. Cheltenham is a town with a proud, if occasionally undervalued, literary history.

Abell will be talking to Prof Beard about why the Roman Empire still matters at the festival this Saturday.