Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town and wrote her first biography, Eliot’s Early Years (1977) while a student at Columbia University. As one of the first women to be a beneficiary of the Rhodes Trust, she came to Oxford in 1973, and from 1976 has found a home in England. She recently became a British citizen but will always feel South African as well. For many years she taught fulltime in Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and member of PEN.