Marilyn Malin

Marilyn's parents were Irene (née Littenberg) and Albert Malin; she was Jewish, and born and brought up in Golders Green, London.^[1] She had at least one sister.^[1] Marilyn attended North London Collegiate School.^[1] She was awarded a state scholarship, which she took up at King's College London.^[1][2]

Malin got a job as a secretary at the publishers Blackie and Son in the 1950s.^[1] In the 1960s she joined Methuen Children's Books, first as an assistant to Olive Jones.^[1] She became assistant children's books editor in 1965, and, towards the end of the 1960s, managing director.^[1][2] With Charles Shirley, she "create[d] the separate entity of Methuen Children's Books. It was an outward-looking company whose sense of identity was enhanced by bright design, a keen marketing drive, and a strong European flavour".^[3] Malin was described as one of the "eminent editorial directors of her time".^[4] Her acceptance, in 1966 with Olive Jones, of The River Kings by Max Fatchen, has been described as the result of "a culture of calculated risk".^[5]

In the 1980s, Malin left Methuen to become a literary agent.^[4]

Malin was the UK editor for Astrid Lindgren, and for Ivan Southall.^[6][7] She was editor for Rosemary Manning, and wrote about her for the journal Bookbird.^[8] She published Michael Morpurgo's Warhorse, and books by Floella Benjamin, John Agard and James Berry.^[1] She worked with Michael Palin on his children's book Small Harry.^[9] Malin was the agent for Kjartan Poskitt,^[10] She was a mentor to the illustrator Jane Pinkney.^[11] Malin commissioned a book written by Alison Prince with 21 primary school children.^[12]

In 1986 Malin started her own publishing imprint, Marilyn Malin Books, in partnership with André Deutsch.^[1][13]

Malin died in 2022 aged 86.^[1][4][14]