Archie Burnett was born in Scotland in 1950 and studied at the University of Edinburgh before completing his DPhil at the University of Oxford in 1977, with a thesis on Milton's language. He was Junior Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford 1974-8 then Lecturer and eventually Professor in English at Oxford Brookes University 1979-2000. He is currently Co-director of the Editorial Institute and Professor of English at Boston University.