Author J.K. Rowling has split with the literary agent who discovered her and helped turn her Harry Potter novels into a worldwide publishing juggernaut. News of the split first surfaced when the agent, 71-year-old Christopher Little, was absent from the final film’s premiere last week.
Angella Johnson writes of Rowling and Little’s relationship and the split in great detail in this Daily Mail article. In part, she writes, Little’s “curt dismissal letter did not even come from Rowling herself. It was sent by Little’s business partner and company lawyer Neil Blair, stating that he was leaving to start his own literary agency—and taking Rowling with him.”
Johnson also writes “industry sources believe that a failure to agree the finances of [the new Pottermore site] could have been behind the decision. But the manner and timing of Little’s dismissal—so close to the premiere—seems to reflect badly on Rowling.
“Earlier in the week, a spokesman for Rowling said the split was ‘a painful decision, especially as Ms Rowling had actively sought a different outcome’.”
Little became a literary agent “by chance in 1979, when a school friend and fellow Hong Kong trader, Philip Nicholson, was seeking representation for his first novel, a thriller entitled Man On Fire. Little agreed to take him on and the book sold 7.5 million copies and became a Hollywood film.
“The agency had only been going for about six years when Harry Potter arrived in the post. Rowling, then a penniless 29-year-old single mother, thought the name Christopher Little was a portent because it sounded like a character from a children’s book.
“Her manuscript went straight into the reject basket but the office manager—who liked the look of its distinctive binding—rescued it, read the synopsis, and showed it to Little.
“He sold it to Bloomsbury for just £2,500, but later reaped huge rewards from international rights and has gained a reputation as a brilliant deal-maker.”
The Bookseller has its brief announcement here.
Related articles previously published on SFScope:
J.K. Rowling reveals her plans for Pottermore (23 June 2011)
Pottermore: your guess is as good as ours (16 June 2011)
J.K. Rowling finally considering e-book versions of Harry Potter (4 April 2011)
Harry Potter’s all published, but there’s more coming, including a contest to visit him (24 March 2010)
Scholastic planning tenth anniversary edition of first Harry Potter book (21 May 2008)
Deathly Hallows sells more than 5000 copies a minute (23 July 2007)