The truest man of letters

In 1969 an author in his early thirties published his first book. The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters won the Duff Cooper prize, delighted the reading public, introduced them to the name of John Gross, and marked the beginning of what would be an illustrious and fascinating literary career. It ended with his death on 10 January 2011, a great sorrow for the many people who loved and admired John.

A year ago, copious tributes were paid to this remarkable man, as writer, editor, critic, friend, which I wished I had joined in. He was the best-read man in the country, said Victoria Glendinning, or for Craig Brown, ‘the man who read everything’. His capacity for reading was indeed almost inhuman, and his memory frightening. One friend recalled casually asking him if they were any literary examples of a ‘disputed succession’ apart from Hamlet, to which John immediately suggested Wilkie Collins’s The Dead Secret, Ibsen’s The Pretenders and Trollope’s Is He Popenjoy?  

No doubt I read at the time, but had forgotten until coming across it again, since I quite lack his total recall, something he wrote here in 1983, an entertaining review of a biography of Sir George Lewis, the famous and immensely influential Victorian solicitor whose clients included the Prince of Wales.