Van Wyck Brooks (ভ্যান উইক ব্রুকস) was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1886 and graduated from Harvard University in 1908. As a student he published his first book, a collection of poetry called Verses by Two Undergraduates, co-written with his friend John Hall Wheelock.

Brooks grew up in the wealthy suburb of Plainfield. Graduating from Harvard in 1907, Brooks went to England, where, while working as a journalist, he published his first book, The Wine of the Puritans (1908), in which he blamed the Puritan heritage for America’s cultural shortcomings. He explored this theme more thoroughly in his first major work, America’s Coming-of-Age (1915), which made a strong impact with its thesis that the Puritan duality that separated spiritual and money matters had resulted in a corresponding split in contemporary American culture between highbrow and lowbrow publics, neither of which was helpful to the writer. The “Finders and Makers” series began with The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 (1936), followed by New England: Indian Summer, 1865–1915 (1940), The World of Washington Irving (1944), The Times of Melville and Whitman (1947), and The Confident Years: 1885–1915 (1952). Criticized by some for seeking in this series a mainstream, essentially middlebrow, cultural tradition free from contradictions and conflicts, Brooks wrote The Writer in America (1953) to justify his position.