Remembering Shirley Stewart

It is with great sadness that I must relate the death of former literary agent and rights executive Shirley Stewart, who has passed away at the age of 67.

Shirley studied French and Spanish at St Andrews University and began her publishing career working for the legendary rights director Gill Vale at the then independent Secker & Warburg. It was the early 1980s and publishing was still very much a gentleman’s business and, for someone who grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, it was a rarefied world.

Shirley left Secker to go to Edward Arnold where she worked for Richard Stileman handling academic books and the estate of EM Forster. She was then lured back to Secker which had since been acquired by Reed International alongside Heinemann and Methuen Books. It was a time of great change in the industry and one in which the then MD Richard Charkin was challenging many of the old business practices. The rights department was very much at the centre of things especially as the company was in the process of launching its own new paperback lines, Minerva and Mandarin, rather than the traditional practice of selling paperback rights.

At the same time a new young Irish writer burst onto the literary scene whose first novel The Commitments was discovered on the Heinemann slush-pile. Roddy Doyle was to find huge international success with all of his rights being handled by the publisher. Ultimately, Roddy valued Shirley enough to engage her to represent his international rights independently and she was able to start her own business in 1993.

Shirley went on to build a small stable of authors including Annie Hawes and Catherine Dunne while also working on behalf of Canongate Books, then under the new ownership of Jamie Byng. Shirley also went into partnership with another rights veteran, Uli Rushby-Smith and together they represented the UK rights on behalf of a number of American clients, including Curtis Brown US, who worked completely independently of their UK cousins, and Henry Holt.

In later years, the partnership folded and while Shirley maintained her links with the US she decided to concentrate on working with international refugees and other charitable projects. She remained a close friend of many in the business and will be much missed by former colleagues in the UK, and internationally.

Shirley’s life celebration and cremation will be on Thursday 24th September at 12.15pm, North Chapel, Eltham Crematorium.

All donations should go to Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice in lieu of flowers.