, Page 001010 The New York Times Archives

Scott Meredith, the literary agent who represented Norman Mailer and who introduced the concept of the book auction to publishing, died on Thursday at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, L.I. He was 69 and lived in Kings Point, L.I.

The cause of death was cancer, his wife, Helen, said.

Mr. Meredith, who began his career in publishing as a short-story writer, founded the Scott Meredith Literary Agency with his brother Sidney in 1946, and landed his first big-name client, the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, shortly thereafter.

He was known as a publishing iconoclast, a tough, finance-minded negotiator who looked out for himself as well as his clients. He once said of other agents: "I'd like them all to be assassinated and there be one agent and that's us."

In addition to Mr. Mailer and Mr. Wodehouse, Mr. Meredith represented the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, Margaret Truman, Spiro T. Agnew, Judith Campbell Exner and Roseanne Arnold. A Self-Help Author

He was the author of "Writing to Sell" (HarperCollins) a practical guide for aspiring writers published in 1950 and still in print, and of "George S. Kaufman and His Friends," a biography of the playwright and his circle.

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In 1952, Mr. Meredith initiated the book auction: the offer of a manuscript to many publishing houses at once, with publication rights going to the highest bidder. Considered an outrageous maneuver at the time in the once staid and polite publishing world, the book auction has since become a standard operating procedure, one that has helped increase the fees that publishers pay writers. Oddly, no one seems to remember the book that started it all.

"A lot of people have asked that," said Jack Scovil, a vice president of the Meredith Agency, who has been working there since 1967. "It didn't start with one property that was super-spectacular. I suspect it was something more mundane. The author needed a sale right away, and this was a device to get an answer more quickly. When Scott discovered it was a very good idea and nobody killed him for doing it, he made it part of the regular practice." 'Fiercely Loyal'

Mr. Mailer signed on with the Meredith agency in 1963, and has been outspoken in his loyalty. On Friday he issued a statement that read, in part: "Scott Meredith was my agent for 30 years, and in that period he became one of my best friends . . . He was a wonderfully intelligent man, lucid in his analyses of publishing situations, fiercely loyal to his clients, and wise and warm in his relation to 100 other matters."

Mr. Meredith was born in Manhattan in 1923 and attended public high schools. As a teen-ager he began publishing short stories in pulp magazines, then joined the Air Force at the beginning of World War II.

"He wanted to be a pilot, but he had truly poor vision," said his wife, whom he married in 1944. Instead, he worked on the editorial staff of Air Force magazine, a publication for servicemen. He founded the literary agency when he left the service.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Steven, of Riverside, Ill., a daughter, Randy Meredith Sheer of Kinnelon, N.J., and four grandchildren.

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