Published In

Handbuch Verlag

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2-28-2025

Abstract

Literary agents are an under researched and comparatively recent feature of international book publishing. This chapter defines literary agents in comparison to other international book publishing intermediaries (like foreign rights agents and literary scouts) and maps the history and roles of the literary agent in Europe and Anglo-America from the nineteenth century to the present. Agents are pushed and pulled by various dichotomies in the industry: center vs periphery, culture vs commerce, local vs global. Over time, literary agents have evolved from brokers to author advocates and informal to professionalized, enabled to flourish and multiply through international copyright coordination and an increasingly crowded marketplace. However, work of literary agents has always been highly networked and culturally and politically embedded.

Rights

This is the author's manuscript version of a chapter published by Springer Nature in Handbuch Verlag: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-67725-4_29-1

DOI

10.1007/978-3-662-67725-4_29-1

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43595

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