Emeritus Prof Horsman, who turns 100 today, gets sent a bundle of books from the Dunedin Public Library once a month.
These are often not enough and the avid reader has to read them twice before the next delivery.
''I don't smoke. I have a glass of beer once a week if I can get it and I've always walked a lot.
''And I read a great deal. It keeps you quiet.''
Prof Horsman moved with his family to Napier from Yorkshire in 1921, when he was 3, then to Auckland's North Shore in 1928.
He later studied at the University of Auckland, paying his part-time tertiary fees by working at the customs department.
He was given time off work to attend his daily lectures and despite the part-time nature of his study, said he did well.
''I received a first class MA and a postgraduate scholarship. I went to Oxford in 1945.''
Before the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Prof Horsman found himself in a blacked out ''old rust bucket'' of a ship, stuffed to the brim with twice as many people as it was meant to hold, on his way to Oxford University in England.
In 1956, he had a brief stint as editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, but when the opportunity came up to pursue a career in literature in Dunedin he could not say no.
He became the inaugural Donald Collie Professor of English at Otago in 1957 and held the position until he retired in 1983.
While there, he would walk home every day to the north end of George St for lunch.
Other factors Prof Horsman said contributed to his longevity were his ''marvellous'' late wife and a family of three, as well as his ''relatively interesting'' job teaching at the university.
He has two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, all boys.
He loved living in Dunedin, which he described as having ''very pleasant surroundings, beaches and countryside and people; the people are marvellous''.
- by Zahra Shahtahmasebi
