John Charles Barrell FBA FEA (born February 1943) is a British scholar of eighteenth and early nineteenth century studies.
[citation needed] He took his first degree at Trinity College, Cambridge, and his PhD at the University of Essex.
He has held a British Academy readership and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.
[citation needed] Barrell's main research is within the field of literature, history and art in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Britain.
[citation needed] Described by Colin McCabe as "the finest literary critic of our generation",[2] Barrell has been awarded honorary degrees by the University of Chicago (2008) and by the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London (2010).