Editor, publisher and literary agent Philippa Brewster died October 15. She was 74. The Bookseller reported that her career started at Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1971, where she was working within the emerging academic fields of film studies and women's studies.
In 1983, Brewster founded the feminist nonfiction imprint Pandora Press, which published politics, history, biography, memoir, health, travel writing and cultural studies, including Jeanette Winterson's debut novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which won the 1985 Whitbread Award for a First Novel.
"We were all part of the women's movement", Brewster later said. "We represented it, but we also informed it."
She joined Jonathan Cape in 1991 and in 1993 moved to I.B. Tauris, where she built the visual culture list. She also instigated and championed academic publishing on popular TV series, including Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sex in the City.
In 2000, she joined Georgina Capel Associates as a literary agent, while continuing to commission for I.B. Tauris. She was awarded the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation's Outstanding Contribution to Publishing award in 2014 in recognition her publishing career.
Jonathan McDonnell, former managing director of I.B. Tauris, called her "a force for good in every way."
Brewster's obituary described her as "an excellent and instinctive editor--empathetic, acute and generous to her authors who admired and benefited from her literary intelligence. She had a precise commercial acumen, never losing sight of the reader, but never compromising her integrity either. She inspired respect and loyalty in all who worked with her, creating opportunities not only for her authors but also for her colleagues, enabling and supporting the burgeoning careers of many."