 He was born in Liverpool on 24 September 1942, the son of a doctor, and grew up in Kirkby Lonsdale in the Lake District.He was educated at Rugby School before going on to read classics and classical philology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.From there, in 1964, he joined Oxford University Press and he worked for them, in India, London, and Oxford, until his retirement in early 2000.