Wylie is the son of Craig Wylie, one time editor-in-chief at Houghton Mifflin. He grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts and attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, from which he was dismissed in 1965: an interview with his university alumni magazine stated that this was for arranging illicit excursions to Boston for fellow students and supplying them, illegally, with alcohol. This did not prevent his acceptance at Harvard, his father's alma mater, where he studied Romance Languages & Literatures, graduating magna cum laude in 1969.
Poet
In 1972, Wylie published a short collection of poetry, Yellow Flowers. Many of the verses cited in publicsources are sexually explicit in nature. In a 2007 interview, fellow agent Ira Silverberg suggested that Wylie has since attempted to acquire the remaining copies of the collection. Wylie himself denied this allegation, describing Yellow Flowers as a "youthful indiscretion".
Literary agent
Wylie founded the literary agency named after him in New York in 1980. He opened a second office in London in 1996. It now represents more than 1000 clients and literary estates. For his business tactics, Wylie has acquired "The Jackal" as a nickname.
Controversies
Throughout his career as a literary agent, Wylie has attracted attention for poaching clients from other agents. In 1995 Martin Amis left his agent of 22 years, Pat Kavanagh, for Wylie, who was reported to have secured an advance of £500,000 for Amis's novel The Information. The move created a rift between Amis and his long-time friend Julian Barnes, who was married to Kavanagh. In July 2010, Wylie launched a new business, Odyssey Editions, to publish e-books. The first twenty titles were launched on 21 July, available exclusively from Amazon.com. Wylie's friendly attitude towards Amazon was short-lived, though: In 2014 he advised: “If you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!” He later went on to liken Amazon's tactics to those of the ISIS terrorist organization.
