Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was born on November 21, 1863 in Cornwall. He was a British writer, who published under the pen name of "Q". Quiller-Couch received a degree from Trinity College, Oxford and later became a lecturer there.

While he was at Oxford he published Dead Man’s Rock (1887), and followed this with the 1888 publication of Troy Town and in 1889, The Splendid Spur. His later novels included The Blue Pavilions (1891), The Ship of Stars (1899), Hetty Wesley (1903), The Adventures of Harry Revel (1903), Fort Amity (1904), The Shining Ferry (1905), and Sir John Constantine (1906).

In 1898 he completed Robert Louis Stevenson’s unfinished novel, St Ives. While in Oxford he was known as a writer of excellent verse. His poetical work is contained in Poems and Ballads (1896). In 1895 he published an anthology from the 16th and 17th-century English lyrists, The Golden Pomp, followed in 1900 by an equally successful Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250—1900 (1900).

He was knighted in 1910, also that year publishing The Sleeping Beauty and other Fairy Tales from the Old French. He received a professorship of English at The University of Cambridge in 1912, which he retained for the rest of his life, later becoming Chair of English.