D. M. Angus grew up in Scotland and worked as an apprentice to a bookseller in Edinburgh. Ill health forced him to emigrate to Australia, where he became employed at the Sydney branch of the Melbourne publisher and bookseller George Robertson (1825-1898). There he met another George Robertson (1860-1933), with whom he eventually formed the Australian publishing and bookselling firm of Angus & Robertson in 1886. Due to ill health Angus retired in 1899 and returned to Scotland.