Toni Strassman (1895–1984) was an authors' representative based in New York City. Her clients included Charles Harris (Brick) Garrigues,[1] John and Martha Clayton,[1] William Goyen,[2] Harry Mark Petrakis[3] and Friderike Zweig, the first wife of Stefan Zweig.[3]
She was born as Fanny Strassman on October 28, 1895.[4] Of delicate health as a young woman, she spent most of 1926 and 1927 in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico before returning to New York. At that time she wanted to be a dancer or actress, and in 1929 she was an understudy with the Provincetown Players in Greenwich Village, but the group disbanded before her show was mounted.[1]
Strassman then worked for Viking Press; she changed her name to Toni in 1936, shortly before she became a full-time literary agent.[1] She died in New York City on April 15, 1988.[4]
Her papers, which include correspondence, memoranda, contracts, royalty statements, manuscripts, diaries, daybooks and photographs, are in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d George Garrigues, He Usually Lived With a Female: The Life of a California Newspaperman, 2006, Quail Creek Press, Los Angeles ISBN 0-9634830-1-3
- ^ Darlene Harbour Unruh, "Selected Letters From a Writer's Life," The Mississippi Quarterly, December 22, 1995
- ^ a b c Archives and Manuscript Collections Relating to Women in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University
- ^ a b Social Security Death Index, cited at www.footnote.com