Moss was born on 21 January 1938 to John Shakespeare Poole and Dorothy Kathleen Beese (née Sills).
[3] However, marriage, children and the beginning of her career put her research on pause, before finally completing her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1975.
[5] From 1963 to 1964, Moss was an assistant lecturer in the French Department of the University College of North Wales in Bangor: she had to give up this job to care for her two young children.
[3] After separating from her husband, she joined the newly formed Trevelyan College, Durham as a resident tutor in 1966, living in nearby accommodation with her children and a nanny.
She also had an interest in post-Medieval Latin writings, and regualary spoke at the congresses of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies.
[3] In 1960, she married John Michael Barry Moss (1931–1985), a fellow academic who specialised in the philosophy of science.