Born in Scarsdale, New York, the only child of Oscar and Blanche (née Williams) Roesen, Barton attended Bryn Mawr College, studying Renaissance literature with A. C. Sprague.

In 1953, her senior essay on Love's Labor's Lost was published in the Shakespeare Quarterly, (the first undergraduate submission accepted by the journal).

In 1969, she married theatre director John Barton, the co-founder with Sir Peter Hall of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Barton held a series of major academic appointments: From 1972 to 1974, she was Hildred Carlile Professor in English at Bedford College, London.

[4] Anne Barton portrait by James Lloyd, commissioned by New College, Oxford (Bridgeman Art Library)