J. R. Ackerley (November 4, 1896 - June 4, 1967, full name Joe Randolph Ackerley) was arts editor of The Listener, the arts publication of the BBC, from 1935 to 1959, and an important author in his own right. At The Listener he discovered many young writers who were to become important, including Philip Larkin, whom The Listener was the first to publish. He was one of Francis King's two mentors (the other being C. H. B. Kitchin). November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... 1896 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... June 4 is the 155th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (156th in leap years), with 210 days remaining. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Listener was a weekly magazine established by the BBC under Lord Reith in January 1929. ... This article is an overview article about the Crown chartered British Broadcasting Corporation formed in 1927. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Philip Arthur Larkin (August 9, 1922 – December 2, 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic. ... Francis Henry King (born 1923) is a British novelist and short story writer, and a poet. ... Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin (1895-1967) was a British novelist of the early twentieth century. ...

Ackerley was educated at a public preparatory school, and enlisted in the Army when he was 16 years old in order to fight in World War I. He was wounded in the war but requested to be back to the front, where he was again wounded and taken prisoner. He was not repatriated to England until the war had ended. His older brother was killed serving in the same brigade in which Ackerley served. After the war Ackerley spent about 5 months in India during the Raj, the recollections of which form his memoir Hindoo Holiday.

As a writer he was known as an elegant stylist and frank observer; his one novel is also notable for its solid intellectual foundation and its masterly construction. His literary output was slight; he wrote that he was often unable to produce anything despite spending hours at a time trying to. His production may also have been limited by extensive family responsibilities, which, after his father's death, included supporting his sister, mother, and aunt. Furthermore, Ackerley's main aim in life was not literary success, but the desire to find his "Ideal Friend", the great love of his life whom he was never to find. The search for this ideal friend consumed his life for many years, and though he had numerous lovers – he himself estimated, at one point in his memoirMy Father and Myself, there to have been "several hundred", though at another point he suggests the more modest sum of two or three hundred – none of them met his high expectations for the Ideal Friend, though he had a number of long-term relationships.

Ackerley was a well-known "twank," a term used by sailors and guardsmen to describe a man who paid for their sexual services, and he describes in humorous and human detail the ritual of picking up and entertaining a young guardsman, sailor or labourer. My Father and Myself also serves as a good guide to a gay man's understanding of his sexuality in this period, including the (minimal) effect of the scientific literature on this understanding.

His literary output consists of:

• Hindoo Holiday (1932), an account of his brief engagement as secretary to an Indian rajah (the spelling was the publisher's; Ackerley preferred Hindu).
• My Dog Tulip (1956), an account of how he acquired and lived with his dog Queenie (the dog's name was changed when the editors of Commentary, who had purchased an excerpt, became concerned that using the dog's real name might encourage jokes about Ackerley's well-known homosexuality).
• We Think the World of You (1960), a novel of the relationship between a middle class man a working class London family, which includes a fictionalized account of how Ackerley acquired Queenie and learned to live with her; winner of the first W. H. Smith prize.
• My Father and Myself (1968), published posthumously. Especially revealing memoir of Ackerley's life and relationship with his father. Its disjointed chronology is superb, allowing the author to isolate concurrent events for impact. Ackerley's stylistic approach to his and his father's sexual exploits and other intimacies is at once frank and tender.

He published one volume of poems Micheldever and Other Poems and was one of the poets included in Poems by Four Authors. 1932 (MCMXXXII) is a leap year starting on Friday. ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... WHSmith company logo W H Smith is a British company, with headquarters in Swindon, England. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ...

His play The Prisoners of War (1925) was well received in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America and in Australia as the Roaring Twenties . In Europe it is sometimes refered to as the Golden Twenties. ... // Events and trends The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the global depression. ...

Ackerley was a close friend and literary admirer of E. M. Forster's. He considered Forster the greatest English novelist of his day and wrote a short biography E.M. Forster: A Portrait. E. M. Forster E.M. Forster should not be confused with C. S. Forester, author of the Horatio Hornblower novels. ...

Ackerley also wrote the introduction to Escapers All; 'the Personal Narratives of Fifteen Escapers from War-Time Prison Camps 1914-1918'.

Both Ackerley's letters and diaries were published posthumously.

Ackerley willed his royalties to a fund to establish the annual J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. The J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography is awarded annually by the English Centre for International PEN to an author resident in Britain who has written an outstanding autobiography in English. ...