Anthony Hassall has taught literature in Australian universities for over forty years. He received his PhD from Monash University in 1973, and he taught at Monash and the University of Newcastle before moving to James Cook University in Townsville. At James Cook University he was successively Professor of English, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and finally Professor of English Literature.
Hassall has specialised in eighteenth-century fiction, and has published Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1979). He has also published extensively in the field of recent Australian fiction, especially on the fiction of Randolph Stow and Peter Carey (qq.v.), and he has been Executive Director of the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies. Since 1987 he has been Founding General Editor of UQP's Studies in Australian Literature Series, a series which has contributed some thirty volumes to the field of Australian literary studies.
In 2005 Hassall retired from James Cook University and became Emeritus Professor of English Literature.
