Murry, John Middleton (1889–1957)

John Middleton Murry, born in Peckham, London on 6 August 1889, was a prolific English writer best known today as the husband and literary executor of Katherine Mansfield. The son of an internal revenue clerk, determined to overcome his lower-middle-class surroundings, Murry won a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital, Sussex, and another to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first in Classics. He founded the journal Rhythm, beginning the editorial and critical labours that defined his reputation during his life. Murry edited a succession of literary magazines—most influentially, the Athanaeum. He steadily produced volumes of literary criticism, politics, religion, and other non-fiction until his death, drawing attention (and often ire) for his radical politics and his critical disagreements with T.S. Eliot.