Born in 1961 inSydney and later resident inMelbourne, Stove graduated fromSydney University in 1985. He is the author of four books:Prince of Music—a biography of the composerPalestrina;The Unsleeping Eye—a brief history of secret police from the sixteenth to the twentieth century;A Student's Guide to Music History—a summary history of classical music from the Middle Ages to the Second World War; and most recentlyCésar Franck: His Life and Times. He has co-edited, withJames Franklin,Cricket Versus Republicanism—a posthumously published collection of essays by his father, the philosopherDavid Stove (1927–1994). Brought up as anatheist, he converted toRoman Catholicism in 2002.[4]
R. J. Stove,Prince of Music: Palestrina and His World (Quakers Hill Press, Sydney, 1990)ISBN0-7316-8792-2
R. J. Stove,The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims (Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003)ISBN1-893554-66-X
R. J. Stove,A Student's Guide to Music History (ISI Books, Wilmington, Delaware, 2007)ISBN1-933859-41-5
R. J. Stove and James Franklin (eds),Cricket Versus Republicanism (Quakers Hill Press, Sydney, 1995)ISBN0-646-21328-8
R. J. Stove, foreword to Peter Coleman,The Heart of James McAuley, 2nd edition (Connor Court Press, Ballan, Victoria, 2006)ISBN0-9758015-6-2
R. J. Stove,César Franck: His Life and Times (Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, 2011)ISBN978-0-8108-8207-2
R. J. Stove, chapter ('Desperately Seeking Franck: Tournemire and d'Indy as Franck Biographers') in Jennifer Donelson and Fr. Stephen Schloesser (edd),Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, (Church Music Association of America, Richmond, Virginia, 2014)ISBN978-0-9916452-0-6
