Barbara Everett

{{Short description|British academic and literary critic (1932–2025)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}

Barbara Everett (September 1932 – 4 April 2025){{cite web|url=https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/dr-barbara-everett-1932-2025/|title=Dr Barbara Everett (1932-2025)|website=Somerville College Oxford|date=7 April 2025 |access-date=9 April 2025}} was a Canadian-born British academic and literary critic, whose work appeared frequently in the London Review of Books and The Independent.{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/book-review-deadly-secrets-of-a-busmans-honeymoon-barbara-everett-on-a-new-life-of-dorothy-l-sayers-1453026.html|website=The Independent|title=BOOK REVIEW / Deadly secrets of a busman's honeymoon: Barbara Everett on a new life of Dorothy L Sayers|date=2 April 1993|access-date=5 November 2017}} In addition to her own publications, she is recognised as a leading Shakespeare scholar.{{cite book | last = Dobson | first = Michael | title = The Oxford companion to Shakespeare | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford, United Kingdom | year = 2015 | isbn = 9780198708735 | page=xii}}{{cite book | last = Muir | first = Kenneth | title = Shakespeare survey : an annual survey of Shakespearian study and production | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge | year = 1977 | isbn = 9780521523684 | page=6}}

Everett was born in Montreal, Canada. She read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, from 1951 to 1954. At the time of her death, she was a retired Fellow of Somerville College.{{cite journal|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v06/n11/barbara-everett/somebody-reading|title=Somebody reading|journal=London Review of Books|date=21 June 1984|volume=06 |issue=11 |access-date=5 November 2017|last1=Everett |first1=Barbara }} She was married to the Oxford scholar of English literature, Emrys Jones,{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/professor-emrys-jones-mkkjn5clhh8|title=Obituary of Emrys Jones|website=The Times}} with whom she appeared in the 1996 documentary Looking for Richard.{{cite book | last = Burnett | first = Mark | title = Shakespeare, film, fin-de-siècle | publisher = Macmillan St. Martins | location = Basingstoke New York | year = 2000 | isbn = 9780230286795 |page=66}}

Frank Kermode described her as "a connoisseur of styles" with "a distinctive style of her own", and her 1986 book, Poets in their time as "one of the finest collections of criticism for years".{{cite web|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n02/frank-kermode/everett-s-english-poets|title=Everett's English poets|website=London Review of Books|date=22 January 1987|author=Frank Kermode|access-date=2 July 2023}} A selection of her essays, edited by Seamus Perry, was published in 2025 by the London Review of Books, shortly before her death at the age of 92.{{cite web|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/barbara-everett?page=1|author=Seamus Perry|title=Barbara Everett|website=London Review of Books|access-date=9 April 2025}}