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
Citation Details
Published as: Noorda, R. (2025). Publishing and the Literary Agent. In: Nebrig, A., Norrick-Rühl, C., Thomalla, E. (eds) Handbuch Verlag. J.B. Metzler, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-67725-4_29-1