James Hughes Massie (1876-1921)
Literary & Dramatic Agent, of Hughes Massie & Co., of London & New York
He was born in Ontario, Canada, and graduated from Cornell University (1901). In 1904, he was resident in Buffalo, New York, when he married Effie, a wealthy widow nearly twenty years his senior who had been married to Buffalo's notable collector of autographed manuscripts, James Fraser Gluck. Effie was then described as a writer, and Massie was a literary & dramatic agent. In 1905, they moved to London (living at 21 St. James Mansions in West Hampstead) where he worked for the International Publishing Bureau before establishing his own agency with Curtis Brown, making a name for themselves through their representation of American authors in England.
In 1913, he left Brown and went out on his own as Hughes Massie & Co., becoming successful as the agent to Agatha Christie - "his bread, butter, and caviar". Christie recalled him as, "a large, swarthy man... he terrified me," and she seemed to have been relieved when he died. Despite his brash reputation, Massie also attracted star names such as Jack London, Eden Phillpotts, and the scandalous Elinor Glyn, etc. Another insight into his character was provided by Willa Cather in a letter to Ferris Lowell Greenslet in 1915: "For years one of my chief jobs at McClure's was wriggling - not always gracefully - out of rash agreements that S.S. (McClure) had made with Curtis Brown and Massey [sic]. One wriggle was to get out of serializing a book by Massey's octogenarian wife, for which treachery he hates me right heartily." Massie eventually had an affair with the younger Gwyneth (Mansergh) Hoos which led Effie to divorce him in 1918. He and Gwyneth were married in 1919, but he died two years later at 75 Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London.
In 1913, he left Brown and went out on his own as Hughes Massie & Co., becoming successful as the agent to Agatha Christie - "his bread, butter, and caviar". Christie recalled him as, "a large, swarthy man... he terrified me," and she seemed to have been relieved when he died. Despite his brash reputation, Massie also attracted star names such as Jack London, Eden Phillpotts, and the scandalous Elinor Glyn, etc. Another insight into his character was provided by Willa Cather in a letter to Ferris Lowell Greenslet in 1915: "For years one of my chief jobs at McClure's was wriggling - not always gracefully - out of rash agreements that S.S. (McClure) had made with Curtis Brown and Massey [sic]. One wriggle was to get out of serializing a book by Massey's octogenarian wife, for which treachery he hates me right heartily." Massie eventually had an affair with the younger Gwyneth (Mansergh) Hoos which led Effie to divorce him in 1918. He and Gwyneth were married in 1919, but he died two years later at 75 Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London.
