Dorothy Auchterlonie Green was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England, on the 28th May 1915, and moved to Australia in 1927, at the age of twelve. After leaving school she taught at a small private school in Sydney, where the headmistress encouraged her to enrol at university. She attended the University of Sydney, where she took first-class honours and then an M.A. in English.
In 1944 she married literary historian, critic and Sydney University Librarian H. M. Green (q.v.). From 1942-1949, she worked as a reader, journalist, essayist, reviewer, broadcaster and news editor with the News Service of the ABC. From 1955 to 1960 she was co-principal of the Presbyterian Girls' College, Warwick, Queensland. She became the first woman lecturer at Monash University, lecturing in Australian, English and American literature (1961-1963). She then moved to Canberra and lectured in English and Australian Literature at the Australian National University (1964-1972), and the English Department, Royal Military College, Duntroon (1976-1980). On her retirement from teaching, she became an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the English Department at Duntroon, and then the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra.
Green was an academic, a scholar, a critic, a writer and a poet, who contributed articles and reviews to almost all Australia's literary, cultural, and political journals and newspapers. Her contribution to Australian literature includes co-editorship of Hermes, three volumes of poetry, collections of critical essays, lectures, articles, reviews and biographies.
Green was the recipient of the Townsville Foundation for Australian Literary Studies Award, 1973 (winner), the FAW Barbara Ramsden Award for the Book of the Year, 1973 (joint winner). Her achievements were recognised throughout her long and distinguished career. In 1984 she was awarded the OAM and in 1988 an AO, in recognition of her services to Australian literature. In December 1987 she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of New South Wales. She was an Honorary Life Member of the Association of Australian Literature, which honours her in the form of the annual Dorothy Green Lecture.
Dorothy Green died on the 21st February 1991.
