Professor Ian Donaldson FBA FRSE FAHA
ido@unimelb.edu.au
Qualifications: BA(Hons)(Melbourne), MA(Oxford)
Year Elected to the Academy: 1975
Discipline: English

Professor Ian Donaldson was Professor of English at the Australian National University from 1969 to 1991, and served as the first Director of the Humanities Research Centre from 1974 to 1990. In February 2004 he returned to the ANU and to his former position as Director of the HRC. In the intervening years he has been Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh (1991-5), Grace 1 Professor of English Literature (1995-2002), Fellow of King's College (1995-), and foundation Director of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (2001-3) at the University of Cambridge.

His books include studies of Jonson and Shakespeare, Renaissance comedy, modern European drama, the practice of biography, the rape of Lucretia, and early views of the Australian Aborigines. With David Bevington and Martin Butler, he is a General Editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, published by Cambridge University Press in 25 volumes in 2007. He is a Consultant Editor (literature 1500-1779) for The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and is completing a life of Ben Jonson, to be published by Oxford University Press.