Otto Jespersen was born near Randers, Jutland, Denmark on the 16th of July, 1860, as a son of a lawyer. He began to study law, became Dr. of law, but soon took up the study of philology. His first work was a concise grammar of English for Danes, published in 1885. In 1891 he became lecturer of English at the University of Copenhagen. He published a number of books on English and soon became an acknowledged authority on the English Language.
He lived for the last years of his life at his country home, a gift of the University of Copenhagen to one of its most outstanding scholars. He died, at the age of 83, at the end of April, 1943.