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Articles in magazines about or with reference to J.L. Carr

This is only a partial and highly selective list of the articles about JLC. They are listed in date order, oldest first. More will be added when they are found. Can you help?


(Last updated on 7/7/2022)



 Anonymous (1973). James and Sally Carr of Carr Publishers House & Garden, March 1973, volume 28, number 2, whole number 277, p 80. (AH)

A half-page about the Carrs in a double page article about home-based publishers, with a photograph of Carr and his wife, Sally, who is adding decorations in watercolours to a map. The article was reproduced inside the front cover of Carr's History of the QTP (1987), to which he has added With Catherine Sharp's help.


Byron Rogers (1980). Pocket size card. The Telegraph Sunday Magazine, no 214, 2nd November 1980, p 93-106 (with lots of adverts in between). (AH)

Whimsical author and publisher J.L. Carr is the odd man out in Britain's book trade. But his success is no joke.

An article with a photograph of JLC and Sally in their garden, next to one of Carr's stone carvings.


 Jack Gould (1982). Honorary degree for ‘Head’ who turned author and publisher at 53. Northampton & County Independent, May 1982.

A four-page article on JLC. There is a copy of the issue of this magazine in Kettering Library.


 Mary D. Kierstead (1984). Talk of the Town: J.L. Carr. The New Yorker, September 3rd 1984, p 23. (AH)

A report of J.L. Carr's visit to New York to present a manuscript of A Month in the County to the Pierpont Morgan Library.


David Taylor (1986). This side of Dover. The novels of J.L. Carr. London Magazine, July 1984, volume 24, no. 4, pp 56-65. (AH)

A review of Carr's work by the novelist and literary critic, David Taylor. Carr reproduced it in his History of the QTP (1987).

In D.J. Taylor's novel Ask Alice (Chatto & Windus, 2009), the main character in the book is named Alice Keach. Just as Carr liked his characters to reappear in his own novels, is this is an example of another novelist using the name of one of Carr's characters, the vicar's wife in A Month in the Country? According to the blurb on the book: Alice also has a secret. Its roots run back years, and miles away, to the dust-blasted prairies of Kansas.


Helen Simpson (1986). The Mysterious J.L. Carr. A twenty-first anniversary portrait. Vogue, March 1986, pp 84-88. (AH)

J.L. Carr ascribes his skill at writing these miniature dictionaries to his old task of teaching sentence structure to reluctant classes. 'You can't compresss if you don't understand punctutation', he comments sombrely. I asked him for a dictionary definition of himself. James Lloyd Carr, a back-bedroom publisher of large maps and small books who, in old age, unexpectedly wrote six novels which, although highly thought of by a small band of supporters and by himself, were properly disregarded by the Literary World.

This is one of the best articles about Carr, in my view.


 Chris Challis (1986/87). Culture Shock. Steppin Out, East Midlands Arts, December/January 1986.

An article related to the video interview with J.L. Carr.


Helen Simpson (1987). Writers. Tales from the Back Bedroom. Illustrated London News, 1st November 1987, p 28.

Two columns (with a photograph of JLC) by a writer who, I think, knew him, rather than just interviewed him.


 Amanda Craig (1987). Catching up with fame, a man who tells and amazing tale out of school. Sunday Express, 8th November 1987, page 5.

There is a copy of this article in Kettering Public Library.


 Joy Pinkham (1988). Fame? Who needs it... Looking Good, August 1988, pages 28-29.

An article on Carr in a Northamptonshire magazine. There is a copy of this magazine in Kettering Public Library.


 Judith Spelman (1990). Interview of the Month. Writer and publisher J.L. Carr talks to Judith Spelman. Writers News, March 1990, pages 10-11.

There is a copy of this article in Kettering Public Library.


 David Moller (1990). The Amazing Mr Carr and the Quince Tree Press. Reader's Digest, March, 1990, volume 138, no 815, pp 68-72. (AH)

A short article about Carr's small books with a photograph of him sitting at his desk with piles of books and a display of titles behind.


 Anonymous (1991). The Passport Interview: J.L. Carr. Passport 2 The New Magazine of International Writing, 1991, pp 177-199. (AH)

A long, verbatim interview with Carr in which he talks about his travels after leaving Huron in 1939, the Beadle County Historical Society, Pollocks Crossing, publishing What Hetty did, characters reappearing in novels, teaching, writing, getting published, the film of A Month in the Country, the television film of A Day in Summer, and autobiography in his novels.


 J. L. Carr (1991). Marriage lines. The Observer Magazine, 7th July 1991.

Carr was one of several people asked about their marriage. He was quite candid.


 David Howard (2003). The Books of J.L. Carr. Book and Magazine Collector, October 2003, no. 235, pp 46-57. (AH)

An article about Carr's novels and small books from a book collector's perspective with a limited bibliography and list of maps by county.


 Andrew Hall (2011). Extra-ordinary cricketers and hand-fast spouses. Slightly Foxed, No 32, Winter 2011, pp 69-76. (AH)

This article describes the origins of Carr's first dictionary, of Cricketers, in the Midlands Club Cricket Conference Year Books and of the other dictionaries that he compiled or published.

The article was reproduced in 2014 on the web site of The Dabbler.

The article in Slightly Foxed was reduced in length for publication. You can read the full, corrected version, published here for the first time in Carr's dictionaries.


 Laura Freeman (2016). The novelist for whom small was beautiful. Standpoint, 24th April 2016.

A well-informed article on Carr's novels that makes the case that length isn't everything.