Richard John Parish (1948-2022) was a scholar of French literature. He was Professor of French at the University of Oxford between 1996 and 2015.

Born in 1948, Parish was educated at Newcastle University, graduating with a BA in 1970.^[1] He then completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford;^[1] his DPhil was awarded in 1974 for his thesis "The abbé de Choisy (1644–1724): a historical and critical study".^[2]

Parish was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Liverpool in 1973;^[1] he returned to Oxford in 1976 when he was elected a fellow and tutor in French at St Catherine's College and appointed to a university lectureship.^[1] He was awarded the title of Professor of French in 1996^[3] and retired in 2015, since when he has been an emeritus professor.^[1] He was appointed an officier of the French Ordre des Palmes académiques in 2001 and was promoted to the grade of Commandeur in 2012.^[1][4][5] He gave the Bampton Lectures in 2009.^[1][6]

He died on 1 January 2022.

• Pascal's Lettres Provinciales: A Study in Polemic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
• Racine: The Limits of Tragedy (Paris, Seattle, Tubingen: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1993).
• Catholic Particularity in Seventeenth-Century French Writing: "Christianity is Strange" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

• (ed.) Abbé de Choisy et Abbé de Dangeau: Quatre Dialogues: I. Sur l'lmmortaluté de l'Ame II. Sur l'Existence de Dieu III. Sur la Providence IV. Sur la Religion; suivis de Pierre Jurieu: Apologie d'un tour nouveau pour les Quatre Dialogues de M. l'abbé de Dangeau (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires, 1981).
• (ed.) Moliere, Le Tartuffe (Bristol: Bristol Classical Texts, 1994).
• (ed.) Racine, Berenice (Paris: Gallimard, 1994).
• (ed.) Racine, Phedre (London: Bristol Classical Texts, 1996).
• (ed.) Scarron: Le Roman Comique, Critical Guides to French Texts, no. 119 (Valencia: Grant and Cutler, 1999).
• (ed.) Jean de La Bruyère [et Louis-Ellies du Pin], Dialogues posthumes sur le quiétisme (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2005).
• (ed.) Éloge et pensées de Pascal: édition établie par Condorcet, annotée par Voltaire (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2008).