Born in Sydney in 1974, Sophie Gee was brought up and educated in the inner-city suburb of Paddington, graduating from the University of Sydney in 1995 with a first-class honours degree in English. She wrote her honours thesis on Evelyn Waugh, and also did half a law degree, until her father, a lawyer, encouraged her to drop out. She won a scholarship to Harvard, where she studied the underbelly of 18th-century London and received a PhD in 2002. She was appointed assistant professor to the English department at Princeton, held a fellowship at UCLA and has recently taught at University College London before returning to Princeton.