Geoffrey Dutton was born in 1922 at Anlaby, the oldest stud sheep station in South Australia. He was educated at Geelong Grammar, Adelaide University and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read English under C S Lewis. War service as a pilot with the RAAF gave him a different kind of education, no less valuable. Senior Lecturer in English at Adelaide University from 1953 to 1962, he was Visiting Fellow at the University of Leeds and Professor at Kansas State University.Dutton was founding editor of Penguin Australia in 1962 and became co-founder of Sun Books, 'Australian Letters' and the 'Australian Book Review'. He was also founding editor of the 'Bulletin' Literary Supplement and, later, of the 'Australian' Literary Magazine.
Dutton had over fifty books to his credit - poetry, biography, art and literary criticism, fiction and children's writing. He was awarded an Order of Australia and was the founding memeber at its launch.
