Having graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1954, he completed national service and went on to graduate study at Manchester and Princeton universities. He received his doctorate from Princeton in 1960.[2] His teaching career divided almost equally into a decade at the University of Edinburgh, a decade at the University of Aberdeen, and almost two decades at the University of Glasgow. Since retiring from the University of Glagow he has been a visiting fellow at the Princeton University English Department and has subsequently taught at Dartmouth College, the College of Wooster in Ohio, and St. Thomas University in Minneapolis—St. Paul. Throughout his career he has taught courses in English, Scottish and American literature.