Murry, John Middleton

Related Category: English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies

1889–1957, English critic and editor. In 1919 he became editor of the Athenaeum and in 1923 founded his own review, the Adelphi, with which he was associated until 1948. He was friendly with many literary personalities, notably T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. His numerous books of criticism include The Problem of Style (1922); Keats and Shakespeare (1925); Son of Woman (1931), a biography of D. H. Lawrence; William Blake (1933); and Jonathan Swift: A Critical Biography (1954). Although he later altered his position on pacifism, he was the author of The Necessity of Pacifism (1937) and during World War II edited the pacifist journal Peace News. In 1913 he married Katherine Mansfield and after her death edited her journals and letters and collaborated in writing her biography (1933). His other works include God (1932) and Christocracy (1942), in which he discusses his mystical philosophy.

See his autobiographical Between Two Worlds (1935); biographies by F. A. Lea (1959) and E. G. Griffin (1968).