Murry, John Middleton 1889-1957
British writer and critic

Born in Peckham, London, he was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Brasenose College, Oxford. He wrote some poetry and many volumes of essays and criticism which had a strong influence on the young intellectuals of the 1920s. In 1911 he met Katherine Mansfield, whom he married in 1918, and introduced her work in The Adelphi, of which he was founder and editor from 1923 to 1948. He also produced posthumous selections from her letters and diaries, and a biography in 1932. He edited the Athenaeum (1919-21). He became a pacifist and was editor of Peace News from 1940 to 1946. Towards the end of his life he became interested in agriculture, and started a community farm in Norfolk. His major works include critical studies on Keats and Shakespeare (1925), his friend D H Lawrence (1931), William Blake (1933) and Swift (1954). He also wrote religious works, including The Life of Jesus (1926). He published his autobiography, Between Two Worlds, in 1935.

Bibliography: F A Lea, The Life of John Middleton Murry (1959)