Stanley Mitchell was born in London to immigrant Jewish parents in a family in which Yiddish was often spoken.
[1] He attended Christ College School in Finchley, North London, which included a period of evacuation to Biggleswade during World War II.
He held teaching posts at the universities of Birmingham, Essex, Sussex, San Diego (California), McGill (Montreal), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Polytechnic of Central London (latterly University of Westminster) and Camberwell School of Art.
[1][3] He published translations of works by Georg Lukács, The Historical Novel in 1962, Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht in 2003, and Alexander Pushkin.
In this he has been praised[4] for capturing not only the precise meaning, but also the wit, the grace and the constantly varying intonations of Pushkin's voice.