Eleanor Friede

Who is Eleanor Friede?

Eleanor Friede was an American book editor and literary agent, best known for bringing the novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull to publication.

Friede was born Eleanor Kask in Rochester, New York and grew up in Valley Stream. She graduated with honors from Hofstra University and shortly thereafter went to work for World Publishing in publicity and marketing.

She married Donald Friede, a World Publishing editor, in 1951. He died in 1965.

Friede was working as a marketing director at Macmillan in 1968 when company president Jeremiah Kaplan convinced her to become an editor. A year later she persuaded Macmillan to buy Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a fable about a seagull who breaks from his flock in search of freedom. The novella sold more than 3 million copies in hardcover.

In 1974, Friede received her own imprint at Delacorte Press. Following Delacorte's purchase by Doubleay in the early 1980s she launched Eleanor Friede Books, a literary agency.

Eleanor Friede died July 14, 2008, at the age of 78.