John Gross
Encyclopedia
John Gross FRSL was an eminent English author, anthologist, literary and theatrical critic. The Spectator
magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian
. He was the editor of The Times Literary Supplement
from 1974 to 1981, senior book editor and book critic on the staff of The New York Times
from 1983 to 1989, and theatre critic for The Sunday Telegraph from 1989 to 2005. He also worked as assistant editor on Encounter
and as literary editor of both The New Statesman
and Spectator
magazines.
, whose musical adaption of Oliver!
won several Oscars.
John Gross was educated at the Perse School in Cambridge and at the City of London School
. A child prodigy, he gained admission to Wadham College, Oxford
at age 17. After gaining first class honours in English Literature at Oxford, he won a fellowship from Princeton
in the U.S. where he undertook post graduate studies. He subsequently returned to England and taught at Queen Mary, University of London
and then at King's College, Cambridge
, where he was a fellow from 1962-65. In later life he also taught courses at Columbia and Princeton universities in the United States.
), James Joyce (1970), Shylock: Four Hundred Years in the Life of a Legend (1993), and his childhood memoir A Double Thread (2001). His works as an editor and anthologist include After Shakespeare: Writing inspired by the world’s greatest author (2002), The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (1983), The Oxford Book of Essays (1991), The Oxford Book of Comic Verse (1994), The New Oxford Book of English Prose (1998), The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (2006), The Modern Movement, Dickens and the Twentieth Century (reissued 2008), and The Oxford Book of Parodies (2010).
Several of his books have won prizes. He also won praise from fellow writers.
“The publication of John Gross’s The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters, when I was a bookish teenager, undoubtedly determined for me the direction I wanted my life to take... It became my Bible,” wrote A.N. Wilson in The Spectator magazine in 2006.
Actor John Gielgud
wrote “I read John Gross’s fascinating Shylock book straight through twice and enjoyed it more than I can say.”
John Updike
called The New Oxford Book of English Prose “a marvelous gem… I wonder if there has ever been an anthology quite like it – with so vast a field – the virtually infinite expanse of English-language prose – for the anthologist to roam… I have been rapturously rolling around in John Gross’s amazing book for days.”
Harold Pinter
, who grew up in the same working class East End London neighbourhood as John Gross, wrote of Gross’s childhood memoir, A Double Thread, “It is a most rich, immensely readable and very moving book. I recognized so much.”
, The Times Literary Supplement
, The Wall Street Journal
, The New Criterion
, Commentary, The Spectator
and Standpoint
. In the past, he was a regular contributor on literary and cultural topics to The Observer
, The New Statesman
and The New York Times
.
He was a trustee of London’s National Portrait Gallery
from 1977 to 1984. He served two terms on the English Heritage
advisory committee on blue plaques commemorating the homes of notable people, and was on the Arts and Media Committee advising the British government on the award of public honors such as knighthoods to persons in the worlds of art, literature, music and theatre. He has served as chairman of the judges of the (Man) Booker Prize
, and was a member of The Literary Society
.
He was a non-executive independent director of Times Newspaper holdings, the publishers of The Times
and The Sunday Times
from 1982-2011.
, also a prominent literary editor, from 1965 to 1988. The couple had two children, Tom Gross
and Susanna Gross
. Gross lived in London, with spells of time living in New York in the 1960s, and 1980s.
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. He was the editor of The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
from 1974 to 1981, senior book editor and book critic on the staff of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
from 1983 to 1989, and theatre critic for The Sunday Telegraph from 1989 to 2005. He also worked as assistant editor on Encounter
Encounter (magazine)
Encounter was a literary magazine, founded in 1953 by poet Stephen Spender and early neoconservative author Irving Kristol. The magazine ceased publication in 1991...
and as literary editor of both The New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
and Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
magazines.
Upbringing and academia
John Gross was born and raised in London’s East End, to Abraham Gross, a Jewish immigrant from the Polish-Jewish town of Gorokhov (now called Horchiv in Ukraine) from where Gross’s family escaped before the entire Jewish population was wiped out in the Holocaust, and to Muriel Gross, also of East European Jewish origin, whose parents came from Vitebsk, an area later made famous by the paintings of Chagall. Among John Gross’s cousins in England was Lionel BartLionel Bart
Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...
, whose musical adaption of Oliver!
Oliver!
Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
won several Oscars.
John Gross was educated at the Perse School in Cambridge and at the City of London School
City of London School
The City of London School is a boys' independent day school on the banks of the River Thames in the City of London, England. It is the brother school of the City of London School for Girls and the co-educational City of London Freemen's School...
. A child prodigy, he gained admission to Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, located at the southern end of Parks Road in central Oxford. It was founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, wealthy Somerset landowners, during the reign of King James I...
at age 17. After gaining first class honours in English Literature at Oxford, he won a fellowship from Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in the U.S. where he undertook post graduate studies. He subsequently returned to England and taught at Queen Mary, University of London
Queen Mary, University of London
Queen Mary, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and then at King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, where he was a fellow from 1962-65. In later life he also taught courses at Columbia and Princeton universities in the United States.
Books
His works as author include The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (1969; revised 1991, winner of the Duff Cooper PrizeDuff Cooper Prize
The Duff Cooper Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of history, biography, political science or poetry, published in English or French. The prize was established in honour of Duff Cooper, a British diplomat, Cabinet member and acclaimed author. The prize was first awarded...
), James Joyce (1970), Shylock: Four Hundred Years in the Life of a Legend (1993), and his childhood memoir A Double Thread (2001). His works as an editor and anthologist include After Shakespeare: Writing inspired by the world’s greatest author (2002), The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (1983), The Oxford Book of Essays (1991), The Oxford Book of Comic Verse (1994), The New Oxford Book of English Prose (1998), The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (2006), The Modern Movement, Dickens and the Twentieth Century (reissued 2008), and The Oxford Book of Parodies (2010).
Several of his books have won prizes. He also won praise from fellow writers.
“The publication of John Gross’s The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters, when I was a bookish teenager, undoubtedly determined for me the direction I wanted my life to take... It became my Bible,” wrote A.N. Wilson in The Spectator magazine in 2006.
Actor John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
wrote “I read John Gross’s fascinating Shylock book straight through twice and enjoyed it more than I can say.”
John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
called The New Oxford Book of English Prose “a marvelous gem… I wonder if there has ever been an anthology quite like it – with so vast a field – the virtually infinite expanse of English-language prose – for the anthologist to roam… I have been rapturously rolling around in John Gross’s amazing book for days.”
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
, who grew up in the same working class East End London neighbourhood as John Gross, wrote of Gross’s childhood memoir, A Double Thread, “It is a most rich, immensely readable and very moving book. I recognized so much.”
Journalism
Gross wrote regularly for The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, The New Criterion
The New Criterion
The New Criterion is a New York-based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books...
, Commentary, The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
and Standpoint
Standpoint (magazine)
Standpoint is a monthly British cultural and political magazine. Its premier issue was published at the end of May 2008 – the first launch of a major current affairs publication in the UK in more than a decade....
. In the past, he was a regular contributor on literary and cultural topics to The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, The New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
Directorships and public service
John Gross served as a trustee or director for several institutions and sat on a number of boards.He was a trustee of London’s National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (England)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in London, England, housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was the first portrait gallery in the world when it opened in 1856. The gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martin's Place, off...
from 1977 to 1984. He served two terms on the English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
advisory committee on blue plaques commemorating the homes of notable people, and was on the Arts and Media Committee advising the British government on the award of public honors such as knighthoods to persons in the worlds of art, literature, music and theatre. He has served as chairman of the judges of the (Man) Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
, and was a member of The Literary Society
The Literary Society
The Literary Society is a London dining club, founded by William Wordsworth and others in 1807. Its members are generally either prominent figures in English literature or eminent people in other fields with a strong interest in literature. No papers are delivered at its meetings. It meets monthly...
.
He was a non-executive independent director of Times Newspaper holdings, the publishers of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
from 1982-2011.
Private life
John Gross was married to Miriam GrossMiriam Gross
Miriam Gross has had a long and distinguished career as a literary editor. She was the Deputy Literary editor of The Observer from 1969–81, the Women’s editor of The Observer from 1981–84, the Arts editor of The Daily Telegraph from 1986–91, and the Literary editor of The Sunday Telegraph from...
, also a prominent literary editor, from 1965 to 1988. The couple had two children, Tom Gross
Tom Gross
Tom Gross is a British-born journalist and international affairs commentator, specializing in the Middle East. He was formerly Jerusalem correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and for the New York Daily News...
and Susanna Gross
Susanna Gross
Susanna Gross has been the books editor of The Mail on Sunday since 1999. She was born in London and educated at the University of York. She previously worked as an editor at the Daily Mail, was features editor of Harper’s & Queen and was deputy editor of The Week.She is also a keen bridge player,...
. Gross lived in London, with spells of time living in New York in the 1960s, and 1980s.