John Middleton Murry, Jr.

John Middleton Murry Jr. (9 May 1926 – 29 April 2002) was an English writer who used the names Colin Murry and Richard Cowper.

Early and personal life Murry was the son of the writer John Middleton Murry and his second wife, Violet Le Maistre. His mother contracted pulmonary tuberculosis when Murry was 8 months old, and died just before his fifth birthday. Murry was nicknamed "Colin" by his grandmother, which later served as a semi-pseudonymous pen name for some of his books.

Murry attended Rendcomb College, a progressive school in Gloucestershire. He enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1944 and applied to join the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot, but was turned down on the grounds of poor eyesight and was never in combat.

After the war, he read Anglo-Saxon and English at Brasenose College, Oxford from where he graduated in 1949. He met Ruth Jezierski and married her in 1949. The couple had two daughters.

Murry died in 2002, four weeks after the death of his wife. His daughters said he died of a broken heart.

Career

His first novel, the autobiographical The Golden Valley, was finished in 1954 but not published until 1958 under the name Colin Murry. The Web of the Magi (1980) Out There Where the Big Ships Go (1980) The Tithonian Factor (1984) The Magic Spectacles: And Other Tales (1986)