Brian Elliott was born and educated in Adelaide, graduating in 1931 with a BA in English and French from the University of Adelaide. He completed an MA at the University of Western Australia, but returned to Adelaide in 1940 to begin his 35-year academic career at the University of Adelaide. Here he was an influence on many students of Australian literature with his enthusiasm and generosity. Elliott was one of the first to write extensively about the Australian ballad, collecting a series of essays first published in Meanjin and Australian Quarterly in Singing to the Cattle and other Australian Essays (1947). He wrote extensively on Australian writers and their works, including a major biography of Marcus Clarke and several anthologies and editions. Elliott's many visits overseas enabled him to study the literature of several different countries which he saw as a possible discipline long before studies of Commonwealth literature were discussed. And, as one of the first titled lecturers in Australian literature, he developed plans for the introduction of an Australian literary studies program before such a program was acceptable. He returned from one of his trips with a model for a national research body. He was instrumental in the foundation in 1956 of the Australian Humanities Research Council (later the Australian Academy of the Humanities).
Elliott was appointed reader in Australian literary studies in 1961, and, following his retirement, he was awarded the honorific Doctor of the University Adelaide and made a member of the Order of Australia. As Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, Elliott continued to review and write at the University of Adelaide, completing more studies of Australian literature and adding to his impressive collection of translations. He died in 1991.
