“The Empire of English Literature” uncovers the editor’s role in constructing the transnational networks that give material and imaginative shape to the emergent field of the Global Anglophone. Tracking works of fiction as they are transformed by the editorial process, I bring to light the competition driving the postwar expansion of Anglophone literatures: between the established institutions of London and New York and the growing institutions of rival literary capitals closer to home. In doing so, I present a fresh account of editorial power that integrates theories of creative reading and literary economy, demonstrating how the editor’s reading mediates between writer and public, text and institution, anticipating reception and so reshaping composition. My chapters scrutinize six author-editor relationships, drawing on archival research conducted across four countries and recasting critical interpretations of V. S. Naipaul, Wole Soyinka, Mavis Gallant, Maeve Brennan, Vikram Seth, and Helen Garner. These close readings further illustrate the mediation between each editor’s institution and two regions of the English-writing world: the BBC as it broadcasts Trinidadian and Nigerian narratives; The New Yorker as it publishes Canadian and Irish authors; and Penguin Books as it spreads to Australia and India. Arguing that editing provides a much-needed critical framework—at once aesthetic and commercial—for the Global Anglophone, I incorporate critiques of the rising discipline’s appropriation of postcolonial territory while guiding it towards a more pluralist future. “The Empire of English Literature” is the first scholarly work to illuminate the editor's part in enlarging literatures in English, advocating for a corresponding diversification of English studies and deepening our understanding of the editorial function in literary history.