Donald McKenzie (academic)

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Donald Francis McKenzie, FBA (5 June 1931 – 22 March 1999) was a New Zealander bibliographer and literary scholar. He was professor of bibliography and textual criticism at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 1996.^[1]

Born in Timaru, South Canterbury, New Zealand, the son of a bootmaker, McKenzie was educated at various schools, the last being Palmerston North Boys' High School, before joining the New Zealand Post Office, where he worked from 1949 to 1956. He continued his studies part-time at Victoria University College, Wellington (BA 1954; DipJourn 1955; MA 1957) and briefly taught at the institution, before obtaining a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a PhD in 1961 on the working conditions of printers in the age of Shakespeare under the supervision of Philip Gaskell.^[1] As a fellow of Corpus Christi from 1960 to 1966, he then worked on the archives of Cambridge University Press, which led to the publication of The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: A Bibliographical Study (2 vols., 1966).

Returning to Victoria University College (which became the Victoria University of Wellington in 1961) after graduating, McKenzie held a succession of academic posts before being appointed professor of English language and literature in 1969, becoming professor emeritus in 1987. In 1986, he was appointed reader in textual criticism at the University of Oxford in succession to David Foxon, also becoming a professorial fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford the same year. In 1989, he was appointed professor of bibliography and textual criticism at Oxford. He retired in 1996, becoming supernumerary fellow of Pembroke College.^[1]

McKenzie gave the Sandars Lectures at Cambridge in 1976 and the Lyell Lectures in Oxford in 1988. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1980 and a Fellow in 1986. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1988, and was awarded the gold medal of the Bibliographical Society in 1990. The McKenzie Lectures in Oxford were established in his honour.

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