Obituary: John Carey, literary scholar and a waspish critic who railed against intellectual snobbery

John Carey was never afraid to go for the jugular in his criticism

John Carey, the former Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford who has died aged 91, was one of Britain’s most ­eminent ­literary critics, but one who ­always regarded himself as an outsider in his own subject.

Carey published major studies of Dickens, Thackeray and Donne, and edited several literary anthologies. He was also a notoriously waspish and readable reviewer for The Sunday Times and a brilliant lecturer.