From the archives: Remembering John Gross

As Charles Moore explains in the latest issue of the magazine, the late John Gross achieved the distinction – among many others – of being the “shortest-serving literary editor of The Spectator ever”. For this week’s archival interlude, I have pasted Charles’s account of Gross’s brief appointment in 1983 below, as well as one of the three book reviews that Gross wrote for The Spectator that year.

Charles Moore’s memories of John Gross

John Gross, who has just died, had many distinctions in the world of letters, but his obituaries did not report that he was the shortest-serving literary editor of The Spectator ever. In 1983, Alexander Chancellor, the editor, sacked A.N. Wilson from the job for a piece of mischief involving Clive James and Bel Mooney, and appointed John in his stead. John commissioned, it was alleged, one book review, and was then poached by the New York Times.