During this tenure Dover was engaged in a protracted dispute with the college librarian and a fellow in history, Trevor Henry Aston (1925[2]–1985), who suffered from manic depression.

I had no qualms about causing the death of a fellow from whose nonexistence the college would benefit, but I balked at the prospect of misleading a coroner's jury ... consulting a lawyer to see if [I] would be legally at risk if [I] ignored a suicide call."

Denniston's The Greek Particles (1950); though Dover is not named on the title page, his signed preface notes that he made various cuts, additions and changes.

His series of Sather lectures on the corpus of speeches attributed to Lysias was important for its early application of stylometry to the study of Greek texts, as well as its agnostic conclusions.

In particular, Dover made use of copious evidence from vase painting as a counterweight to the idealized picture of homoerotic relationships found in Plato.

[6] Dover received honorary degrees from the Universities of Oxford, St Andrews, Birmingham, Bristol, London, Durham, Liverpool, and Oglethorpe.

[7] Beyond his academic honours and pursuits, Dover was well known for his skill and devotion to bird watching and was considered one of Britain's finest birders.

Dover was the subject of an edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme In the Psychiatrist's Chair, presented by Anthony Clare.

[9] This prompted media attention[10] because of its frank description of his private life, and Dover's admission of having contemplated helping to bring about the death of one of the fellows of Corpus Christi College, the historian Trevor Aston, by refusing to respond to a suicide attempt.

He married Audrey Ruth Latimer in March 1947;[12] Lady Dover died in December 2009 after 62 years of marriage.