Education
Beattie was educated at Aylesbury Grammar School and the University of Exeter, where he took a double first in German and Russian (1997) and subsequently studied for an Master of Arts in Lexicography (1998), which he passed with Distinction.
Career
Whilst at Exeter, Beattie also held a choral scholarship at Exeter Cathedral. After brief freelance dictionary work for Bloomsbury Publishing (Encarta® World English Dictionary, 1999) and Oxford University Press (The Oxford Russian Dictionary, third edition, 2000), Beattie joined the London antiquarian booksellers Bernard Quaritch Limited in 1998. In January 2010 he set up his own independent company in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, specialising in European cross-cultural history.
On the publication of Beattie"s first catalogue, The Book Collector wrote: "If you have not got a copy of Beattie Short List 1, get it at once" (Autumn 2010, p 462).
In September 2014, Beattie took part in the inaugural York Antiquarian Book Seminar. Beattie also composes choral music
His setting of Advent Calendar, a poem by Rowan Williams, was broadcast on British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 3 as part of the 2008 Advent carol service from Street John"s College, Cambridge.
Membership
He was the first British bookseller to be featured in Fine Books Magazine"s series Bright Young Things. When he became a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association in 2011, the Association"s Newsletter described him as "a dealer to watch" (October 2011, Issue 364, p 15).