 L. Perry Curtis was born in London, England, the son of Lewis Perry Curtis, associate professor of history at Yale (1900-1976), and his wife, Bryn Mawr College-graduate Jeanet Ellinwood (née Sullivan), daughter of an insurance company executive.Curtis was educated at the Foote School, at New Haven, Connecticut, Brooks School, at North Andover, Massachusetts, then at Yale and Christ Church, Oxford, transferring after two years to Nuffield College, Oxford.He spent his summers as a copy-boy at The New York Times, at which his maternal grandfather and an uncle had been employed.