Jacqueline Korn, a literary agent and former co-director of David Higham Associates who, over her 50-year career, represented a list of authors that included James Herriot, Richard Adams, Jack Higgins, Michael Morpurgo, Stephen Fry, and Arthur C. Clarke, has died, the Bookseller reported. She was 88.
After taking a typing course, Korn launched her career working for literary agents Harvey Una and Nina Froud. She joined DHA in 1958 as secretary to novelist and literary agent Paul Scott, author of The Raj Quartet. When Scott stopped working as an agent, Korn became assistant to the agency's founder, David Higham, and then started representing her own clients. Following Higham's death in 1978, Korn and Bruce Hunter--whose clients included John le Carré and Muriel Spark--jointly ran the agency for two decades, the Bookseller wrote.
Roland Glasser, her son and a Booker International-longlisted literary translator from the French, said his mother was "as much a counsellor to her authors as she was an agent, making herself available to them at any hour. She was also committed to helping people enter and progress within publishing, offering advice and nurturing talent throughout her career."
In a tribute, literary agent and DHA director Veronique Baxer observed: "Jacqueline was in her early 60s when she gave me my first job in publishing. Her highly successful career had spanned decades by then, and she was a formidable force within the agency and the publishing community. She fought fiercely and fearlessly on behalf of her authors, managing to balance toughness and occasional ferocity with warmth, humor and compassion."
Although she formally retired 15 years ago, she remained close to a number of her former authors and continued to offer them occasional advice, the Bookseller noted, adding that Korn "was also founding member of the Groucho Club, established in 1985 by figures from publishing and the wider creative industries as an alternative to London's more traditional private members' clubs, many of which were then male-only."