At University of Oxford, Pasley became the foremost authority of his generation on German literature, particularly well known for his dedication to and publication of the works of Franz Kafka.

[1] The only son of Sir Rodney Pasley, 4th Bt (1899–1982), and Aldyth née Hamber (1898–1983), he was born at Rajkot in British India, where his father was Vice-Principal of Rajkumar College, before becoming Headmaster of Barnstaple Grammar School (1936–43), then of Birmingham Central Grammar School (1943–59); his father edited the Private Sea Journals (publ.

1931)[2] of his senior lineal ancestor, Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, who distinguished himself in the French Revolutionary Wars and was created a baronet in 1794.

[6] Vice-President of Magdalen College for 1979/80,[7] Pasley was elected in 1983 to the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, before retiring from academia in 1986.

The Trial remained in the possession of Brod heiress Esther Hoffe, and in November 1988 the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach purchased the manuscript for £1.1 million at an auction conducted by Sotheby's.

[11][12] At Oxford, Pasley headed a team of scholars (Gerhard Neumann, Jost Schillemeit,[13] and Jürgen Born) that recompiled the text, removed Max Brod's edits and changes, and began publishing the works in 1982.

This team restored the original German text to its full (and in some cases incomplete) state, with special attention paid to the unique Kafka punctuation, considered to be critical to his style.