{{Short description|Scottish literary agent and writer (1940–2003)}} {{Use British English|date=August 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} {{Infobox person |name = Giles Gordon |image = |caption = |birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1940|05|23}} |birth_place = Edinburgh, Scotland |birth_name = Giles Alexander Esmé Gordon |death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2003|11|14|1940|05|23}} |death_place = Edinburgh, Scotland |parents = Esmé Gordon (father) |education = Edinburgh Academy; Edinburgh College of Art |spouse = Margaret Eastoe, m. 1964–1989, her death<br/>Maggie McKernan, m. 1990 }}
'''Giles Alexander Esmé Gordon''' (23 May 1940 – 14 November 2003) was a Scottish literary agent and writer, based for most of his career in London.
==Early life and education== The son of Esmé Gordon (1910–1993), an architect and Honorary Secretary (1973–1978) of the Royal Scottish Academy,<ref>Robert Scott Morton and Anthony Wheeler, [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-esme-gordon-1489530.html "Obituary: Esme Gordon"], ''The Independent'', 3 June 1993.</ref><ref>[http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=203479 "Alexander Esmé Gordon (or Esmé Gordon)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170421194207/http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=203479 |date=21 April 2017 }} biography.</ref><ref>[http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12744980.Alexander_Esme_Gordon/ "Alexander Esme Gordon"], ''Herald Scotland'', 2 June 1993.</ref> and his wife Betsy,<ref name="Times1">[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1060728.ece Obituary: "Giles Gordon"]{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, ''The Times'', 15 November 2003. Retrieved 19 January 2008.</ref> Giles Gordon was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at the Edinburgh Academy,<ref name="Indie">David Hughes, [https://web.archive.org/web/20090602152225/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/giles-gordon-730419.html Obituary: "Giles Gordon"], ''The Independent'', 17 November 2003. Retrieved 17 January 2009.</ref> an independent day school. Here he acted in school productions, including ''Iolanthe'', with future broadcaster Gordon Honeycombe, among others. After school, where Giles persistently failed examinations, he attended, for a time, Edinburgh College of Art, where his father lectured on architecture.<ref name="Barker">Dennis Barker, [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/nov/17/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries "Obituary:Giles Gordon"], ''The Guardian'', 17 November 2003. Retrieved 17 January 2009.</ref>
==Publishing career== In 1959, Gordon joined the Edinburgh publisher Oliver and Boyd as a trainee; he remained as their employee for nearly four years.<ref name="Barker"/> In 1961 and 1962, he edited the first four issues of the Saltire Society's quarterly magazine ''New Saltire''.<ref>Gordon, Giles (ed.), ''New Saltire'': Summer 1961, The Saltire Society, Edinburgh</ref><ref>Gordon, Giles (ed.), ''New Saltire'' 4: Summer 1962, The Saltire Society, Edinburgh</ref> In 1962, he moved to London,<ref name="Telegraph1">[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1446732/Giles-Gordon.html Obituary: "Giles Gordon"], ''The Daily Telegraph'', 14 January 2003. Retrieved 19 January 2009.</ref> and was advertising manager for Secker & Warburg for a year, editor at Hutchinson in 1966, and then of the plays list at Penguin, where he launched the Penguin Modern Playwrights series. He became editorial director at Gollancz in 1967 and stayed for five years, abolishing the uniform style in which the company's books had previously appeared.<ref name="Barker"/> At this time, he interviewed playwrights for ''Transatlantic Review''.<ref name="Telegraph1"/>
In 1972, he clashed with the directors at Gollancz over their desire to remove some of the sex from a novel by Dennis Potter, and joined agent Anthony Sheil, later Sheil Land Associates,<ref name="Times1"/> aiming to improve the terms for authors. Among the writers he represented at one time or another were Peter Ackroyd, Allan Massie, Penelope Mortimer, Vikram Seth, Sue Townsend, Barry Unsworth and Fay Weldon.
He recognised the merits of an early Adrian (then Nigel) Mole sketch by Townsend, and persuaded her to turn it into a full-length book, which together with its sequel sold more copies than any other two books by the same author during the 1980s.<ref name="Telegraph1"/> Of wider significance, he suggested ''Spycatcher'' by Peter Wright, with Paul Greengrass, be written.<ref name="Telegraph1"/> The book, which the British government attempted to ban internationally, detailed allegations of a criminal activity by the security services in which the principal author had directly participated. As an agent, he was successful in securing larger fees for his clients, including a £650,000 advance for Peter Ackroyd's biographies of Blake and Dickens<ref name="Barker"/> and a £250,000 advance for Vikram Seth's first novel and later £1.3 million for ''Two Lives'', a memoir of Seth's great-uncle and aunt.<ref name="Times1"/>
He returned to his love of the theatre as drama critic for ''The Spectator'' (1983–1984) and the ''London Daily News'' briefly published by Robert Maxwell in 1987. He also leaked bookish gossip to the satirical magazine ''Private Eye''<ref name="Indie"/> and wrote their "Bookworm" column.<ref name="Times1"/>
Breaking with his employer Sheil Land in 1994, he was prevented by a court order from contact with his clients lest he poach them. He set up the Scottish office of Curtis Brown in 1994.<ref name="Indie"/> The offshoot was quietly closed after Gordon's death.
==Writing==
In 1966, he released a collection of poems, ''Two & Two Make One'', which was published by Akros{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} on a print run of 350 copies. He also wrote half a dozen novels between 1971 and 1980,<ref name="Telegraph1"/> and later a memoir ''Aren't We Due a Royalty Statement'' (1993), a title that caused accusations of impropriety by quoting a comment from one of his clients, the Prince of Wales.<ref name="Indie"/>
==Personal life== [[File:The grave of Giles Gordon, Grange Cemetery.jpg|thumb|330px|The grave of Giles Gordon, Grange Cemetery]] He married Margaret Eastoe in 1964; they had two sons and a daughter. His daughter Hattie had, at the time of her father's death, just published a memoir of her brother Gareth, who had died by suicide in 1994 at the age of 24.<ref name="Telegraph2">Tom Peterkin, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1446752/Giles-Gordon-top-literary-agent-dies-fortnight-after-fall.html "Giles Gordon, top literary agent, dies fortnight after fall"], ''Daily Telegraph'', 14 November 2003. Retrieved 17 January 2009.</ref> His wife Margaret died of an incurable illness in 1989.<ref name="Times1"/> Gordon's second marriage was to Maggie McKernan in 1990, with whom he had a son and two daughters.
Gordon died aged 63, from injuries sustained in a fall a fortnight earlier outside his home in Edinburgh.<ref name="Telegraph2"/> His funeral took place at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, and later a memorial service was held in London at the church of St-Martin-in-the-Fields<ref>[https://www.thetimes.com/article/memorial-service-3092zbtbqjw "Memorial service - Giles Gordon"], ''The Times'' (Court & Social), 19 March 2004.</ref> on 17 March 2004. He has a small marker stone at the foot of his parents' grave, where he is buried, against the north wall of the south-western extension of Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh.
==Selected bibliography== ===Novels===
* ''The Umbrella Man''. London: Allison and Busby, 1971. * ''About a Marriage''. London: Allison and Busby; and New York: Stein and Day, 1972. * ''Girl with Red Hair''. London: Hutchinson, 1974. * ''100 Scenes from Married Life: A Selection''. London: Hutchinson, 1976. * ''Enemies: A Novel about Friendship''. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1977. * ''Ambrose's Vision: Sketches Towards the Creation of a Cathedral''. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980.
===Short stories===
* ''Pictures from an Exhibition''. London: Allison and Busby; and New York: Dial Press, 1970. * ''Farewell, Fond Dreams''. London: Hutchinson, 1975. * ''The Illusionist and Other Fictions''. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978. * ''Couple''. Knotting, Bedfordshire: Sceptre Press, 1978.
==Reviews== * Sawday, Jonathan (1980), review of ''Ambrose's Vision: Sketches Towards the Creation of a Cathedral'', in ''Cencrastus'' No. 4, Winter 1980-81, pp. 46–47, {{issn|0264-0856}}
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== * [https://rsliterature.org/fellow/giles-gordon/ "Giles Gordon"], Fellows Remembered, The Royal Society of Literature
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Giles}} Category:1940 births Category:2003 deaths Category:20th-century Scottish novelists Category:Scottish male novelists Category:20th-century Scottish male writers Category:Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Category:British literary agents Category:People educated at Edinburgh Academy Category:Scottish magazine editors Category:Scottish writers Category:Scottish short story writers