John Bayley:

Born in India in 1925, John Bayley was educated at Eton and Oxford, and he served during World War II in the Grenadier Guards. He became a fellow of New College in 1955, where he taught English. In 1956, he married the novelist Iris Murdoch, who was then teaching philosophy at St. Anne's College. In 1973, he was appointed Warton Professor of St. Catherine's College.

Bayley has written numerous works of criticism – notably, The Characters of Love, Tolstoy and the Novel, Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary, and Shakespeare and Tragedy. He has also published several studies about Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, and Henry James, as well as a history of the short story. His most recent book, The Widower's House, was published in 2001.

Nothing in recent literary memory, however, compares to the response given the publication of Elegy for Iris, a New York Times bestseller, which has spoken to readers the world over about suffering, sacrifice, and love. Together with its sequel, Iris and Her Friends, Bayley wrote these beautiful tributes to Murdoch during her struggle with Alzheimer's disease, to which she ultimately succumbed in 1999. In 2001, Jim Broadbent won an Academy Award for his portrayal of John Bayley in the film adaptation of Elegy for Iris.

Bayley remarried in 2000, and he lives and writes in Oxford, England.
(Photo by Jerry Bauer)

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