John Carey

John Carey (1934–2025) was a British literary critic and Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford from 1975 to 2002, renowned for his scholarship on John Milton and anti-elitist critiques of high culture in works like The Intellectuals and the Masses (1992) and What Good Are the Arts? (2005). His notable books also include John Donne: Life, Mind and Art (1981), The Violent Effigy on Dickens (1973), and a biography of William Golding (2009); he chaired the Booker Prize judging panel twice (1982, 2003) and the first Man Booker International Prize (2005), served as chief book reviewer for The Sunday Times for decades, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy and Royal Society of Literature.