Obituary: Edite Kroll

Literary agent Edite Kroll, known for her passion for mentoring and supporting authors, and her keen eye for talent, died at her home in Maine following a long illness. She was 87.

Kroll was born in Blasheim, Germany, in 1939 and was educated in Germany, France, and England. In the early 1960s, she was working in foreign and subsidiary rights and editing children’s books at London publisher Chatto & Windus, which was then home to revered authors and editors Leonard Woolf and Cecil Day-Lewis. It was at there that she met American editor and eventual children’s book author Steven Kroll, whom she married in 1964. (The couple later divorced.)

The Krolls relocated to New York City in 1965 and Edite landed a position as associate children’s book editor at Knopf. She then transitioned to the same role at Holt, Rinehart and Winston, before she and her husband both left Holt and moved to Maine, where Edite embarked on a freelance editorial career that included translating German children’s books into English.

By 1973, back in New York, Kroll joined publishing house M. Evans as a children’s book editor. The following year she moved to Harper Junior Books as associate children’s book editor, and in 1976 she was appointed executive assistant to Charlotte Zolotow, then associate publisher of the division. Kroll later represented Zolotow and her daughter Crescent Dragonwagon as author clients for many years.

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