'Flamboyantly independent' agent and author Smith dies aged 84

Tributes have been paid to author and agent Carol Smith who has died at the age of 84. 

She died on 5th June after a long literary career both in writing and publishing, in agenting and writing full-time. Her thrillers included Kensington Court and Unfinished Business (Little, Brown).

After growing up in London she went to New York in the early 1960s and found her first publishing job with academic book publisher Arthur Rosenthal who moved her around his company giving her experience of every department.  When she left he suggested working as a literary agent so she started up her career in agenting back in London. 

She worked at A P Watt representing major international authors before starting her own agency. In the early 1970s she sealed her first million-dollar deal and celebrated by buying herself a large diamond ring.  

Her family wrote: “Having successfully represented authors for years she took the plunge and became a bestselling author herself. She was extraordinarily well connected with friends and clients including Arianna Huffington, Bernard Levin, Edward de Bono, Stephen King, Robert Maxwell, Roy Hattersley, Miriam Margolyes and many more. 

“For decades she lived in great style in a large Edwardian mansion flat with a doorman near Kensington Gardens where she entertained her many friends and held large parties. She shared it with her pedigree Burmese cats Orlando and Amadeus and they all moved to a charming house in Bedford Park, Chiswick, for the last few years of her life.”    

Wayne Brookes, associate publisher at Pan Macmillan, said: “Carol Smith was a friend and mentor for 26 years. The day I walked into her office in Adam and Eve Mews just off High Street Kensington was the day that changed my life. She took me under her wing and guided me through the early days of my career in this business we call publishing. I will never forget our first lunch where she told me ‘this is where all good book deals are made’. Her often naughty sense of humour, glamour and love of tradition – a vodka martini at six — will be sorely missed.”  

He added: “The memories of sitting for hours in her flat discussing new books, television shows and who was doing what in the business will stay with me forever. As an agent she represented the best talent and as an author she entertained thousands with a tantalising mix of the gothic and crime. She also had no time for literary snobbery. I personally owe my career to Carol Smith, and the world is a much darker place without her.” 

Stephen Rubin, consulting publisher for Simon & Schuster USA and former chairman of Transworld, said: “Carol was a true original. She was a flamboyantly independent agent, serving her myriad clients out of her beautiful, rambling flat in Kensington. When she tired of agenting, she became a successful novelist. No one was better at reinvention.  

Susan Fletcher, former deputy m.d. of Hodder & Stoughton, said: “Carol Smith was part of my publishing life for more than 30 years and we shared many brilliant authors. She was a glamorous presence, with her blonde hair, a husky voice that spoke of a 50-a-day cigarette habit — though in fact she never smoked — and the diamond rings she awarded herself for every mega deal. But that flamboyance came alongside a terrifically perceptive eye for talent and formidable negotiating skills. 

“She loved the business, and its people (albeit disparaging of any fusty ‘gentleman publisher’ tendency) and liked nothing more than bringing a disparate group together for white wine in her stylish top-floor Kensington flat to introduce young editors to their opposite numbers and authors to each other. She had an endless curiosity about people, and what made them tick, and took that with her when she reinvented herself as a novelist after selling her agency.  

“The adjective that particularly comes to my mind is ‘enthusiastic’ and she displayed that quality whenever I saw her, whether it be for a book she had just read, a TV show she was watching or a new friend she had made. It is a duller world without her.” 

The funeral will be held on 7th July 2023 at 2 p.m. at Mortlake Crematorium in Richmond. Family flowers only. Donations to the Doorstep Library. For more information, email sam@exithere.com.