Germaine Greer is a major cultural figure – a writer, an English critic, a literary and media star, and a feminist. Born in 1939 in Melbourne, she gained a BA honours from Melbourne University in 1959, an MA with first class honours from Sydney in 1963, and a PhD from Cambridge in 1968. She took a post as a lecturer in English at Warwick University in 1967, leaving in 1972 to devote more time to her writing.