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John Carey, Literary Critic, Dies at 91

12/26/2025

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Summary

Story summary

John Carey, a prominent critic and the Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford from 1975 to 2002, died on December 11 in Oxford, England, at age 91.
He challenged elitism in the arts and criticized highbrow literature for inaccessibility.
In The Intellectuals and the Masses, he argued that modernists deliberately complicated their work, shaping British literary life for decades.

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Story summary

John Carey, a prominent critic and the Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford from 1975 to 2002, died on December 11 in Oxford, England, at age 91.
He challenged elitism in the arts and criticized highbrow literature for inaccessibility.
In The Intellectuals and the Masses, he argued that modernists deliberately complicated their work, shaping British literary life for decades.