I was born in England in 1945. Educated at St. Ronan's, Wellington College, the Université de Poitiers à Tours, Sussex University, and the University of California Berkeley, I moved to California after training with Bernard Quaritch Ltd. in London. I worked for John Howell-Books in San Francisco from 1971 to 1974, and opened my own business at 68 Post Street in partnership with Ron Randall to form Randall and Windle on April 1, 1975. We later moved to 185 Post Street before Ron left for Santa Barbara in 1980 (where he still runs Randall House) and I took the decade off to move to Venice CA, write and publish two bibliographies, travel around India studying Tibetan Buddhism and traverse America (on foot), all the while buying and selling books, finally reopening a shop in 1989 in San Francisco.

I am a former Master of the Press of the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco and a founding member of the Colophon Club, a member of AIB, the Grolier Club, the Caxton Club, the Book Club of California where I served on the Board and was Vice-President and chair of the publications and library committees, the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America), the ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers), the PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association), and the IOBA (Independent Online Booksellers Association).

I have written and/or published several books and articles, including bibliographical studies of T.F. Dibdin, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the Kelmscott Chaucer, Grapes and Grape Vines of California (the first book to illustrate California grapes in color), and numerous catalogues and publications about William Blake. I contributed all the bibliographical descriptions to the Grolier Club publication "One Hundred Books Famous in Children’s Literature" (2014), a task that took almost five years.

I am married to Chris Loker, author of "One Hundred Books Famous in Children’s Literature" (2014), several children's books, and the forthcoming “Shimmer of Joy: American Children’s Picture Books of the 20 Century”. She serves on several boards including the Grolier Club, the Bring Me A Book foundation, and the Eric Carle museum. Her son Evan lives in San Diego and works as a senior intellectual property appraiser. His wife Alexandra Lyman Loker is Senior Director of Corporate & Community Development at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego.