J.L. Carr

1912–1994

English novelist, teacher and small-press publisher whose comic, often elegiac fiction is rooted in provincial English life. Born Joseph Lloyd Carr in Carlton Miniott, Yorkshire, he trained as a teacher, spent 1938 teaching in South Dakota and served as an RAF intelligence officer in the Second World War. He was headmaster of a Kettering primary school from 1952 to 1967, then ran his own Quince Tree Press. His novels include A Day in Summer, The Harpole Report and A Month in the Country. He died in February 1994. The Battle of Pollocks Crossing was shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize.

Timeline of J.L. Carr’s life

Works

• The Battle of Pollocks Crossing (1985)

Prizes

• The Battle of Pollocks Crossing — The Booker Prize 1985: Shortlist