John R. Roberts (Jack) was born March 7, 1934, in Brazil, Indiana, the son of Paul Roberts and Irene Roberts Hill. He graduated from Indiana State College in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Latin and French and went on to receive a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois in 1962. Jack married Lorraine Bielski on August 5, 1955, and they were together for 62 years. They had six children: Stephanie Roberts, Mary Winslow (Charles), Claire Karl, Milissa Roberts (deceased 1973), Lisa Cochran (Steve) and John (Bo) Roberts Jr.

Roberts taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (4 years), the University of Detroit (2 years) and the University of Missouri-Columbia (from 1968 to his retirement in 2000). He served as chairman of the English Department from 1974-1980 and was honored as a faculty member by the Byler Distinguished Professor Award in 1979 and by the Catherine Paine Middlebush chair in 1982-85. Both his graduate and undergraduate students appreciated his wit and his scholarly excellence as a professor of Metaphysical Poets.

Roberts became an international professor and scholar beginning in the 1980s, having been elected to a Visiting Fellowship at St. Edmund’s College in Cambridge in 1984. He also served as the leader of the university’s London Program during this period. As a scholar, Roberts established himself as the pre-eminent bibliographer of John Donne studies Roberts was a founding member and first president of the John Donne Society and won the John Donne Society award for distinguished publication in Donne Studies in 1993.

Roberts died on May 31, 2017.