I. A. (Ivor Armstrong) Richards

Born in Sandbach, Cheshire, on February 26, 1893, Ivor Armstrong Richards became one of the most influential literary critics of the 20th century. He studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge, later taught there, and built a reputation as a brilliant educator who wanted readers to look carefully at how poems actually work on the page.

Richards is closely associated with the development of practical criticism and with the wider movement that fed into New Criticism. Among his best-known books are The Meaning of Meaning (written with C. K. Ogden), Principles of Literary Criticism, Practical Criticism, and The Philosophy of Rhetoric. His work connected literary study with psychology, communication, and the problem of how language creates meaning.

He also took a strong interest in education and in Basic English, a simplified form of English developed with Ogden. Richards spent part of his career teaching outside Britain, including at Harvard, and remained an important voice in literary and rhetorical studies until his death in Cambridge on September 7, 1979.