Robert Ignatius Letellier was educated in Grahamstown, Cambridge, Salzburg, Rome and Jerusalem. He is a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Meyerbeer Institute Schloss Thurnau, the Salzburg Centre for Research in the Early English Novel, the Maryvale Institute, and the Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall at the University of Cambridge. He has over 100 publications to his name, including books and articles on the late-seventeenth-, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novel, the Bible, and European culture. He has specialized in the Romantic opera, especially the work of Giacomo Meyerbeer, and has also written on Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, as well as Ludwig Minkus and the Romantic Ballet.