Cary, (Arthur) Joyce (Lunel) (1888-1957)

Irish-born British writer. Cary was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, studied at Oxford, Edinburgh, and Paris, later settling in England from 1920. He drew on his experiences gained in the Nigerian political service (which he entered in 1913) as a backdrop to such novels as Mister Johnson (1939), and used the trilogy form to look at a subject from different viewpoints. The first and best known of his trilogies was about the life of an artist, Gulley Jimson, and comprised the novels Herself Surprised (1941), To Be a Pilgrim (1942), and The Horse's Mouth (1944).

Another trilogy, on politics, comprised A Prisoner of Grace (1952), Except the Lord (1953), and Not Honour More (1955). He also wrote two volumes of verse, Marching Soldier (1945) and The Drunken Sailor (1947); several political studies; and Art and Reality, a work of literary criticism.