Edwin George Pulleyblank (Ted) was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 1922, the son of W. G. E. Pulleyblank, a much respected high school teacher. He developed a strong interest in languages while still in high school and specialized in Greek and Latin Classics at the University of Alberta, where he graduated in 1942. During the Second World War he was engaged in intelligence work that involved Japanese and he also began the study of Chinese at Carleton College in Ottawa and privately. After the end of the war, in September 1946, he went to England, where he studied Chinese language and history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1951 for his dissertation on The Background and Early Life of An Lu-shan. In 1948 he had been appointed as a Lecturer in the Far East Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies and in 1951-52 he spent a year on study leave in Japan doing research in libraries in Tokyo and Kyoto. In 1953 he was elected to the Chair of Chinese in the University of Cambridge. His early publications, which included The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan, Oxford University Press, 1955, and articles in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, T'oung Pao, and Asia Major, were in the field of Tang history with a related interest in Central Asia. From 1959 onward, inspired by an earlier interest in the comparative study of Indo-European languages as well as by the need for better teaching materials in Classical Chinese, he turned to historical linguistics, especially the problems of the grammar of the classical language and the reconstruction of at Old and Middle Chinese phonology. In 1966 he returned to Canada to take up a Professorship in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, where he served as Head of Department from 1968-1974. He retired as Professor Emeritus in December 1987.

In 1980 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 1993 he was made a Corresponding Fellow of the Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. He has served as President of the Canadian Society for Asian Studies (1971-74), President of the American Oriental Society (1990-91), President of the Western Branch of the Anerican Oriental Society (1992-93) and President of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (1995-96).