John Bagnell Bury was born in County Monaghan, Ireland, in 1861, to highly educated parents who encouraged his early aptitude for learning. His father, the Reverend Edward John Bury, taught him Greek and Latin from the age of four, and found him so adept that by the age of ten Bury was able to pass college entrance examinations in Greek and Latin without a single mistake. Bury entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1878, after he had placed first in the examination for the Classical Scholarship, and eventually became Fellow of Trinity College in 1885. In all, Bury published 369 books, articles, notes, or reviews in a wide variety of journals and other publications before his death in 1927 in Rome.