The foremost David Jones scholar, Dilworth was born in Detroit in 1945, received a Ph.D in English from the University of Toronto (1976), is a Distinguished university Professor at the University of Windsor, Ontario, a Killam Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has three daughters and three grandchildren. He has published over 140 articles and chapters and 14 books, including The Shape of Meaning in the Poetry of David Jones (1984), which won the British Council Prize in the Humanities, David Jones in the Great War (2012), and David Jones Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet (2017), which was a finalist for the Duff Cooper Prize, the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography, and Wales Book of the Year, chosen as Book of the Year by Claire Harman (TLS), A.N. Wilson (TLS), Melanie McDonagh (Evening Standard), Christopher House (Tablet), and Adam Thorpe (Resurgence & Ecologist).