Sir Charles Otto Desmond MacCarthy (20 May 1877 – 7 June 1952) was a British writer and

literary Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, ...

and dramatic critic. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, the intellectual secret society, from 1896.

Early life and education

The son of Charles Desmond MacCarthy, M.A., and a descendant of the last MacCarthy Chief of the Name and King of Desmond, MacCarthy was born on 20 May 1877 in

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, and educated at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

. At Cambridge he got to know

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychology, psychologic ...

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

and

G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began de-emphasizing ...

Career

A member of the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

, MacCarthy also had a wider circle of friends, including

Logan Pearsall Smith Logan Pearsall Smith (18 October 1865 – 2 March 1946) was an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and was an expert on 17th century divines. His ''Words and Idio ...

. In 1903 he became a

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

, with moderate success. For part of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he worked in Naval Intelligence. In 1917 he joined the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'' as a drama critic, and in 1920 became its literary editor. He wrote a weekly column under the pen-name "The Affable Hawk". During this time he recruited

Cyril Connolly Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon (British magazine), Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote ''Enemies of Pro ...

to the paper. By 1928 he was losing interest in the ''New Statesman'', and became the first editor of '' Life and Letters''.Jeremy Lewis ''Cyril Connolly: A Life'' Jonathan Cape 1997 Other periodicals he was associated with were ''New Quarterly'' and ''Eye Witness''. MacCarthy became a literary critic for the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', and several volumes of his collected criticism were published. He was the author of the short ghost story "Pargiton and Harby", reprinted in the ''Fourth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories''. He was knighted in the 1951 New Year's Honours.

Personal life

In 1906, MacCarthy married Mary "Mollie" Warre-Cornish, daughter of Francis Warre Warre-Cornish. She was a respected literary figure in her own right. Her sister Cecilia married William Wordsworth Fisher. They had two sons, Michael and Dermod, and a daughter, Rachel, who married the literary historian Lord David Cecil; their son was the actor Jonathan Cecil. He is buried with his wife at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.

Works

* '' The Court Theatre'' (1907) * ''Portraits'' (1931) * ''Drama'' (1940) * ''Memories'' (1953) * ''Humanities'' (1953) * ''Theatre'' (1955)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maccarthy, Desmond 1877 births 1952 deaths British male journalists British literary critics British theatre critics Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People educated at Eton College Writers from Plymouth, Devon Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Knights Bachelor New Statesman people Bloomsbury Group Presidents of the English Centre of PEN