Marie Rodell

Marie Freid Rodell (January 31, 1912 – November 9, 1975) was a literary agent and author who managed the publications of much of environmentalist Rachel Carson's writings, as well as the first book by civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr..

Rodell was born in New York City, and attended Vassar College (B.A. 1932). After nine years as an editor for mystery novels, Rodell formed her own literary agency in 1948.[1] That year she met Rachel Carson, who hired her. She worked with Carson for the remainder of her life, and after Carson's death in 1964 became her literary executor; she compiled and organized the Rachel Carson Papers (which took over two years) and arranged for the posthumous publication of A Sense of Wonder.[2] In 1957 she was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s literary agent for Stride Toward Freedom.[1]

Rodell wrote three mystery novels and was a member of Mensa.[2]

Rodell wrote Mystery Fiction: Theory and Technique; in his column of November 7, 1943, Chicago Tribune book columnist Vincent Starrett called this “one of the most entertaining textbooks ever written.” She was also the editor of the Regional Murder Series.

References

  1. 1 2 Rodell, Marie Freid (1912-1975), King Encyclopedia, accessed September 11, 2007
  2. 1 2 Priscilla Coit Murphy, What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005), pp. 28-29

Who Was Who in America, Volume 6

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