Yahoo News Sterling Lord Dies: Literary Agent For Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’ Was 102
Sterling Lord, who represented Jimmy Breslin, Art Buchwald, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gordon Parks and most famously, Jack Kerouac, died Saturday in Ocala, Fla. He was 102 and his death was confirmed by his daughter, Rebecca Lord. No cause was given.
The list of literary greats represented by Lord over his long career included Frank Deford, David Wise, Nicolas Pileggi, Delores Kearns Goodwin, Joe McGinniss, Pete Gent, Pete Axthelm, and more. But it was Kerouac’s book that is likely his lasting legacy, sold for $1,000 after four years of trying. It went on to sell more than five million copies.
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Lord was born in Burlington, Iowa, on Sept. 3, 1920. His father was an amateur bookbinder and nourished his son’s passion for books. Oddly, Lord himself publilshed only two works, a how-to on tennis and a memoir, neither of them massive sellers.
He graduated with an English degree fro Grinnell College in Iowa, then joined the Army and was sent to Europe near the end of World War II. He helped edit the weekly magazine of the military publication Stars and Stripes, briefly taking it private when the Army stopped publication in 1948. ,When the magazine closed in 1949, he moved to New York.
Lord worked at several magazines, including True and Cosmopolitan, before becoming a literary agent. His tastes were eclectic, and he was known to bring in large advances for his roster.
In 1987, Lord joined with agent Peter Matson to form Sterling Lord Literistic. He continued to work well into his 90s as a high-performing agent. He ended his stint there and formed his own agency at the end of his career.
Lord was married and divorced four times. His daughter, Rebecca Lord, is his only immediate survivor.
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