John Middleton Murry

John Middleton Murry 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.

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

Murry, John Middleton (1889–1957), editor of the Modernist periodical Rhythm (1911–13), through which he met in 1912 Katherine Mansfield, whom he was later (in 1918) to marry. In 1914 he met D. H. Lawrence, who greatly influenced him; the relationship of the Lawrences and the Murrys was intense and tempestuous, and is reflected in Women in Love. From 1919 to 1921 Murry was editor of the Athenaeum, in which he published an impressive range of writers, including V. Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and Valéry, and in which he himself attacked Georgian poetry. In 1923, the year of his wife's death, he founded the Adelphi; although he was to marry again three times, he continued to dwell on her memory, editing her works, publishing reminiscences, letters, etc. His many critical works include Dostoevsky (1916), The Problem of Style (1922), Countries of the Mind (1922, 1931), Keats and Shakespeare (1925), and Son of Woman, the Story of D. H. Lawrence (1931). Throughout his turbulent emotional and professional life he was attracted to the extreme and the romantic, seeing life as a spiritual search. See his autobiography, Between Two Worlds (1935).