John Robert McCrum (born 7 July 1953) is an English writer and editor, holding senior editorial positions at

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

over seventeen years, followed by a long association with ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

''.

Early life

The son of

Michael William McCrum Michael William McCrum CBE (23 May 1924 – 16 February 2005) was an English academic and ancient historian who served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Head Master of Tonbridge S ...

, a

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

educated

ancient historian Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

, McCrum was educated at

Sherborne School (God and My Right) , established = 705 by Aldhelm, re-founded by King Edward VI 1550 , closed = , type = Public school Independent, boarding school , religion = Church of England , president = , chair_label = Chairman of the governors , ...

, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MA(Cantab)), and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

as a Thouron Scholar.

Career

McCrum was editorial director at

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel ...

from 1979 to 1989 and editor-in-chief there from 1990 to 1996. He served as

literary editor A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews.

of ''

'' for more than ten years. In May 2008 he was appointed associate editor of ''The Observer''. McCrum is the co-author of ''

The Story of English ''The Story of English'' is an Primetime Emmy Award, Emmy Award-winning nine-part television series, produced in 1986, detailing the development of the English language. ''The Story of English'' is also a companion book, also produced in 1986. ...

'' with William Cran and

Robert MacNeil Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, Order of Canada, OC (born January 19, 1931) is a Canadian-American journalist and writer. He is a retired television news anchor who partnered with Jim Lehrer to create ''The MacNeil/Lehrer Report'' in 1975. E ...

and wrote ''

P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeve ...

: A Life''. McCrum's novel ''Suspicion'' was published in 1997. McCrum received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2011. In August 2017, McCrum's ''Every Third Thought: On life, death and the endgame'' was published, taking its title from

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's play '' The Tempest''. The book was adapted and broadcast as

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

Book of the Week ''Book of the Week'' is a BBC Radio 4 series that is broadcast daily on week days. Each week, extracts from the selected book, usually a non-fiction work, are read over five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning (9:45a ...

'' the following month.

Personal life

In 1995, McCrum suffered a massive stroke. The devastating experience and his recovery is chronicled in ''My Year Off: Recovering Life After a Stroke''. He had been married to

Sarah Lyall Sarah Lambert Lyall is an American journalist who has worked for ''The New York Times'', including an 18-year period as the title's London correspondent. Biography Raised in New York City, Lyall attended the Chapin School and is a graduate of Ph ...

, an American journalist, for only two months and the book includes diary entries made by his wife. He also became a patron of the UK charity Different Strokes, which provides information and support for younger stroke survivors. Sarah Lyall, who writes for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', lived in London from 1995 to 2013 and was the newspaper's London correspondent. She returned to New York with the couple's daughters in 2013; Lyall and McCrum later divorced. McCrum describes himself as "a confused non-believer".

Bibliography

Fiction

* ''In the Secret State''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980. * ''A Loss of Heart''. 1982 * ''The Fabulous Englishman'' UK: Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 1984. * ''Mainland''. New York: Knopf, 1991. * ''The Psychological Moment''. London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1993. * ''Jubilee''. New York: Knopf, 1994. * ''Suspicion''. New York: Norton, 1997.

Non-fiction

* ''The Story of English.'' New York: Elisabeth Sifton, 1986. (With William Cran and Robert MacNeil) * ''My Year Off: Recovering Life After a Stroke.'' New York: Norton, 1998. * ''P. G. Wodehouse: A Life.'' New York: Norton, 2004. * ''Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language.'' New York: Norton, 2010. * ''The 100 Best Novels in English.'' London: Galileo, 2015. * ''Every Third Thought: On Life, Death and the Endgame.'' London: Picador, 2017. * ''The 100 Best Non Fiction Books of All Time.'' London: Galileo, 2018.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCrum, Robert Living people People educated at Sherborne School Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge British book editors Place of birth missing (living people) British literary editors 1953 births