You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
London-based literary agency Peters Fraser & Dunlop (PFD) has announced the launch of Contemporary Classics, a list of literary estates and select established authors.
Led by the company's head of contemporary classics Giulia Bernabè, who will be working with agent Dan Fenton, Contemporary Classics is the new home for PFD’s list of literary estates. The list will also be taking over responsibility for certain established authors represented by the agency.
The list’s launch is accompanied by the signing of three major author estates. PFD said: “Coinciding with its launch, Contemporary Classics is celebrating the signing of three new names: the Estate of Peter Mayle, whose million-selling A Year In Provence reinvented the travel genre; the Estate of Lesley Blanch, the pioneering traveller of extraordinary glamour, whose most famous book The Wilder Shores Of Love continues to captivate readers nearly seventy years after its first publication; and Contemporary Classics will also be representing the late US sci-fi and fantasy author Gordon R Dickson, winner of three Hugo Awards.”
“Our new identity reflects the fact that these authors, even though some were published in the very early part of the twentieth century, still speak to readers and audiences all over the world today,” Bernabè said. “They inspire, inform and entertain, and we are delighted to be representing them. At the same time, these classics—whether fiction or non-fiction, whatever their genre—require specialist stewardship and a dedicated team to ensure they are brought alive again for today’s readers.”
Bernabè said: “We are thrilled to be taking on these three very different and talented authors and look forward to bringing their work to new generations of international readers across all formats.”
Contemporary Classics’ most recent highlights include Rebecca West, whose Saga of the Century trilogy has topped the Italian bestseller lists and is now sold in eight languages, and Nicholas Rhea, whose Constable series was republished last year by Joffe Books.
This summer sees a major UK relaunch from Faber of Beryl Gilroy’s autobiography, Black Teacher, with a new introduction by Bernardine Evaristo.