Curtis Brown (literary agents)

Curtis Brown (Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency) is a literary and talent agency based in London, UK. One of the oldest literary agencies in Europe, it was founded by Albert Curtis Brown in 1899.

Albert Curtis Brown was an American journalist who was the London correspondent for The New York Press. He also ran a press syndication agency. Because of his contacts in both the UK and America, he fell into representing authors who were looking for publishing opportunities on the two continents.

The first deal he transacted was selling serial rights in John Oliver Hobbes’s The Vineyard. The literary agency element of Brown’s business was accommodated alongside his press agency in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. In 1914, Curtis Brown opened its first international office in New York; subsequently, offices were opened in Paris, Berlin, Milan and Copenhagen. Brown believed in the exchange of literature between countries as a point of principle to foster international understanding. The company retains a translation rights department to this day.

During this period, Brown carried out agency business on behalf of a large number of well-known writers such as Kenneth Grahame, AA Milne and DH Lawrence. It also worked on behalf of prominent figures of the day including Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.

Curtis Brown wrote an autobiography called Contacts – published by Cassell in 1935. He ran the agency until 1935 when he was succeeded by his son Spencer Curtis Brown. Spencer ran the agency until his retirement in 1968 when he sold it to an investment company.

The agency was instrumental in establishing the reputations of several British and American writers, including John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, C P Snow, Angus Wilson, Lawrence Durrell, Gerald Durrell, Kingsley Amis, Elizabeth Bowen, and Isaiah Berlin.

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