John Cullen Murphy, Jr. (born September 1, 1952) is an American writer, journalist and editor who was managing editor of ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' magazine from 1985 to 2006.

Early life and education

He was born in

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle ( ; in ) is a Political subdivisions of New York State#City, city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately from Midtow ...

, in 1952, a son of illustrator and cartoonist

John Cullen Murphy John Cullen Murphy (May 3, 1919 – July 2, 2004) was an American illustrator best known for his three decades of work on the ''Prince Valiant'' comic strip. Early life and education Born in New York City, Murphy spent his childhood in Chicago a ...

. He grew up in

Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich ( ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 63,518. It is the largest town on Gold Coast (Connecticut), Connectic ...

. His family moved to

Dublin, Ireland Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

for several years, including 1966, the 50th anniversary of the Easter Revolution. Murphy graduated from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

''cum laude'' with a degree in European studies in 1974. Murphy's first magazine job was in the paste-up department of ''Change'', a magazine devoted to higher education.

Career

He became an editor of '' The Wilson Quarterly'' in 1977. From the mid-1970s until 2004 he worked with his father, John Cullen Murphy, as writer for the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

'' Prince Valiant'', for which his father produced the artwork. He is also the author of ''The Word According to Eve: Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own'' (1999); ''Are We Rome?'' (2007), which compares the politics and culture of

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

with that of the contemporary United States; ''God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World'' (2012); and ''Cartoon County: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make-Believe'' (2017), a history of the cartoonists and illustrators from the Connecticut School. He currently serves as editor at large for '' Vanity Fair'' and is on the advisory board of the literary magazine The Common, based at

. He previously chaired Amherst's Board of Trustees.

Personal life

Murphy lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Anna Marie Torres Murphy. He has three children, Jack, Anna, and Tim.

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

*
Murphy bio at TheAtlantic.com

Archive of stories by Murphy at TheAtlantic.comVideo of debate/discussion with Cullen Murphy
and Rod Dreher on Bloggingheads.tv *
Cullen Murphy (AC 1974) Prince Valiant Comic Collection
at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections 1952 births Living people American comics writers American magazine editors American male journalists Amherst College alumni Writers from New Rochelle, New York The Atlantic (magazine) people Vanity Fair (magazine) people Writers from Connecticut Journalists from New York (state) {{US-comics-creator-stub