[1] She attended the German Day School and read English at Bedford College, London.

She won the George Smith studentship in 1918,[2] allowing her to obtain a master's degree from the University of London.

[3] She won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for 1923 with her Study of the Work of Mrs Radcliffe.

[3] Tompkins was a visiting professor at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, between 1967 and 1969, where she promoted its Stewart Collection of Kipling documents among Canadian scholars.

[5] Her works on Kipling (The Art of Rudyard Kipling, 1959), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Fawcett Lecture on 'Aurora Leigh', 1961) and William Morris (1987) were lauded for their innovation, keen interpretations, close analysis, and social perspective.