Columbia Library columns (v.39(1989Nov-1990May))

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  v.39,no.2(1990:Feb): Page 21  



My Life as a Literary Agent                          21

became a member ofthe board of Curtis Brown, London, and in
New York took over their office at 25 West 43rd Street (the so-
called New Yorker building), leaving my office of twenty-eight years
at 22 East 60th Street—the attractive French Institute Building.
(When I ended my career I was at 575 Madison Avenue.)

As James Brown Associates, before our "marriage" to Curtis
Brown, London, we had represented Brits—the Arthur Conan
Doyle Estate, Sir Arthur's son, Adrian Conan Doyle, Hugh Eraser,
Cecil Beaton, Anthony Blond, Jessica Mitford, and Brian Glanville,
among others. Now we added to our list, to name only a few, Mary
Renault, Daphne du Maurier, Sarah Churchill, Lawrence and
Gerald Durrell, John Julius Norwich, Angus Wilson, Hugh
Thomas, David Lodge, Michael Pye, Brian Inglis, Montgomery
Hyde, Julian Symons, Nicholas Freeling, Dorothy Dunnett, John
Ranelagh, Patricia Moyes, Patrick White, James Aldridge, and
Antonia Eraser.

One of my special British authors was C. P. Snow, with whom I
had a close friendship interrupted too soon by his death. Charlie
Scribner III, Snow's publisher, telephoned one day and asked me
who Kate Marsh was. Lord Snow had just asked, on receiving cop¬
ies of his novel A Coat of Varnish and being puzzled by the dedica¬
tion, "For Kate Marsh." Kate Marsh was the assistant to Graham
Watson, Snow's agent in my London office, and at some point a
copy of the typescript had been delivered there with the notation,
"For Kate Marsh." The American typesetter, or whoever, assumed
incorrectly that the note was a dedication. I never heard what Lady
Snow thought of all this—whether she had doubts about her hus¬
band's claiming not to know the very proper Kate Marsh.

I enjoy being retired, being able to tell about myself instead of
listening as I did for so many years to writers talking about them¬
selves. I now buy and read books without having to think what I
shall do with what I read. I've joined the world of contented book
readers. Occasionally I read a manuscript from my friends Louis
Auchincloss, Herbert Gold, and Mickey Friedman, and others,
before the manuscript becomes a book, and that also is a pleasure
requiring no responsibility. It was and is a good life.
  v.39,no.2(1990:Feb): Page 21