Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010[1][2][3]) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing.

His father was a delivery truck driver and warehouseman for a ferry company, and his mother, a "farm girl", had been a waitress.

The family was of "extremely modest means", and "struggled to maintain a respectable yet always precarious standard of life".

[4][5] Kermode, having come first in the examinations allowing attendance,[4] was educated at Douglas High School for Boys[6] and the University of Liverpool.

Under Kermode, the UCL English Department chaired a series of graduate seminars which broke new ground by introducing for the first time contemporary French critical theory to Britain.

[citation needed] A few months before Kermode's death, the scholar James Shapiro described him as "the best living reader of Shakespeare anywhere, hands down".