John Bayley (writer)

John Oliver Bayley, CBE, FBA, FRSL (27 March 1925 – 12 January 2015) was a British literary critic and writer. He was Warton Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1974 to 1992.

Bayley was born in Lahore, British India, and educated at Eton, where he studied under G. W. Lyttelton, who also taught Aldous Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane, George Orwell and Cyril Connolly. After leaving Eton, he went on to take a degree at New College, Oxford. From 1974 to 1992, Bayley was Warton Professor of English at Oxford. He was also a novelist and wrote literary criticism for several newspapers. He edited Henry James' The Wings of the Dove and a two-volume selection of James' short stories.

From 1956 until her death in 1999, he was married to the writer Dame Iris Murdoch. He thought that sex was "inescapably ridiculous." In spite of, or because of, his feelings, his wife had multiple affairs with both men and women, which he occasionally witnessed for himself. In the mid-1990s Murdoch fell ill with Alzheimer's disease, diagnosed in 1997. Bayley then wrote the book Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch (1998), which was made into the 2001 film Iris by Richard Eyre. In this film, Bayley was portrayed in his early years by Hugh Bonneville, and in his later years by Jim Broadbent. After Murdoch's death Bayley married Audi Villers, a family friend. He was appointed CBE in 1999.

John Bayley died on 12 January 2015.

Jim Broadbent won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as John Bayley in the 2001 film Iris.