Jan Jędrzejewski was educated at the University of Łódź, Poland, where he obtained, in 1985, his MA in English philology, and at Worcester College, University of Oxford, where he completed, in 1992, his DPhil on Thomas Hardy. He joined the University of Ulster, as a Lecturer in English, in 1993; he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2001, and he became a Professor of English and Comparative Literature in 2007. He held the posts of Acting Head of the Humanities Research Institute (2008-2009), Acting Head of the School of History and International Affairs (2009), Head of the School of English and History (2009-2014), and Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2014-2017).

A specialist in nineteenth-century English literature, particularly the Victorian novel, Professor Jędrzejewski also has a major interest in comparative literature, focusing on European literature in general, and on the literary relations between the British Isles and Poland in particular. He has published monographs on Thomas Hardy and the Church (1996) and George Eliot (2007), and he has produced critical editions of Hardy (in English and in Polish) and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He was also a co-editor of The Complete Critical Guide to English Literature / Routledge Guides to Literature series (2000-2011). His most recent publication is a co-edited one-volume synthesis of the literary history of Europe, Lettres européennes: Histoire de la littérature européenne (2021; English-language edition in preparation).