John Cann Bailey (1864-1931) was a British author and critic. Born in Norwich he was a graduate of Oxford University. He was called to the bar, stood for Parliament but failed to get elected, and was a member, and eventually president, of the Literary Society. He was a regular contributor to many of the leading newspapers and magazines of the day including the Times Literary Supplement, the Edinburgh Review, the Fortnightly Review and the Quarterly Review. His works include: Studies in Some Famous Letters (1900), An Anthology of English Elegies (as editor) (1900), The Claims of French Poetry (1907), Poets and Poetry (1911), Dr. Johnson and His Circle (1913), Milton (1915), A Daybook of Landor (1919), Some Political Ideas and Persons (1921), The Continuity of Letters (1923), Walt Whitman (1926), The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish (1927) and Shakespeare (1930).