Giles Gordon

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, and his wife Betsy, Giles Gordon was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, 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.

Publishing career In 1959, Gordon joined the Edinburgh publisher Oliver and Boyd as a trainee; he remained as their employee for nearly four years. In 1962, he moved to London, 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. His wife Margaret died of an incurable illness in 1989. 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,