Bayley, John, 1925-2015

John Oliver Bayley (27 March 1925 – 12 January 2015) was a British academic, literary critic and writer. He was the Warton Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1974 to 1992. His first marriage was to the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch. Bayley was "acclaimed for his dissections of Goethe and Pushkin as well as of Jane Austen". The "master of all he surveys", he "is the reviewer’s reviewer", excelling where "deep knowledge and logical examination come together"; his criticism "consists of attractively original examinations of subjects", "especially those devoted to poetry and to Russian and central European literature". Sir Frank Kermode, who held the position of King Edward VII Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge, reviewed Bayley's The Power of Delight: A Lifetime in Literature (Bayley's literary essays from 1962 to 2002) with the title of "The King of Crit".