Desmond MacCarthy was a literary critic and journalist. Born in Plymouth and raised in Leeds, he was educated at Eton and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. There, he was elected to the Apostles and began a lifelong friendship with the ethical philosopher G. E. Moore (1873–1958). He also formed close connections with several members of the nascent Bloomsbury Group, of which he was a core member and for which he would later serve as secretary for Roger Fry’s (1866–1934) first Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1910.