He was born and grew up in London’s East End, to Abraham Gross, an east European immigrant, and Muriel Gross and was educated in London and at the University of Oxford, and has taught at the University of London and the University of Cambridge (where he was a fellow of King’s College).

His works as author include The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (1969; revised 1991, winner of the Duff Cooper Prize), James Joyce (1970), Shylock: Four Hundred Years in the Life of a Legend (1993), and his memoir A Double Thread (2001). His works as an editor and anthologist include After Shakespeare: Writing inspired by the world’s greatest author (2002), The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (1983), The Oxford Book of Comic Verse (1996), The New Oxford Book of English Prose (1998), The Oxford Book of Essays (2002), The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (2006), The Modern Movement, Dickens and the Twentieth Century (reissued 2008), and The Oxford Book of Parodies (2010).

Several of his books have won prizes. He has also won praise from fellow writers.

“The publication of John Gross’s The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters, when I was a bookish teenager, undoubtedly determined for me the direction I wanted my life to take... It became my Bible,” wrote A.N. Wilson in The Spectator magazine in 2006.

Actor John Gielgud wrote “I read John Gross’s fascinating Shylock book straight through twice and enjoyed it more than I can say.”

John Updike called The New Oxford Book of English Prose “a marvelous gem I wonder if there has ever been an anthology quite like it — with so vast a field — the virtually infinite expanse of English-language prose — for the anthologist to roam I have been rapturously rolling around in John Gross’s amazing book for days.”

Harold Pinter, who grew up in the same working class East End London neighbourhood as John Gross, wrote of Gross’s childhood memoir, A Double Thread, “It is a most rich, immensely readable and very moving book. I recognized so much.”

He writes regularly for The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion, Commentary, The Spectator and Standpoint. In the past, he was a regular contributor on literary and cultural topics to The Observer, The New Statesman and The New York Times.

John Gross has served as a trustee or director on a number of bodies.

He was a trustee of London’s National Portrait Gallery from 1977 to 1984. He served two terms on the English Heritage advisory committee on blue plaques commemorating the homes of famous people. He is currently on the Arts and Media Committee advising the British government on the award of public honors such as knighthoods. He has served as chairman of the judges of the Booker Prize. He is a member of The Literary Society.

He has been a non-executive independent director of Times Newspaper holdings, the publishers of The Times and The Sunday Times, since 1982.

John Gross was previously married to Miriam Gross, also a prominent literary editor. They have two children, Tom Gross and Susanna Gross. He lives in London.