John Carey, who has died aged 91, bestrode the ever-narrowing bridge that connects the academic teaching of English literature to the world of literary journalism like a colossus. An Oxford don for more than 40 years – 25 of them as Merton professor – he combined his professional duties with a half-century-long stint on the books pages of the Sunday Times. All this gained him a formidable reputation as the most erudite and possibly the most pugnacious critic of his generation.
Carey’s take-no-prisoners approach to the business of literary journalism was the distinguishing mark of his early descents on Grub Street. He was anti-elitist, anti-Bloomsbury, anti-anything that, as he saw it, patronised the tastes of ordinary readers or hindered their enjoyment of literature, and capable of wielding his pen like a scythe.
