About John Carey (critic)
John Carey was a British literary critic, and post-retirement (2002) emeritus Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He was a scholar on John Milton and he also published a number of books on various literary figures. He became known for his anti-elitist views on high culture, as expounded in several books such as The Intellectuals and the Masses and What Good Are the Arts? Carey twice chaired the Booker Prize committee, in 1982 and 2003, and chaired the judging panel for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. He won an Open Scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, but served 18 months of National Service with the East Surrey Regiment in Egypt before going to Oxford in 1954.
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