James Playsted Wood was born on December 11, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York. He earned two degrees from Columbia University—a bachelor's in 1927 and a master's in 1933. Wood taught English for seven years at DuPont Manual Training High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also contributed book reviews for the Louisville Courier-Journal. From 1937 until 1946 he was a member of the English department at Amherst College in Massachusetts. A member of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, he served in the Pentagon office of the chief of staff, General George C. Marshall. He became a major and earned the army commendation medal. During the war, on August 14, 1943, he married Elizabeth Craig, a teacher of Latin, French, and Greek.

In 1946 Wood left both the military and Amherst College to work as assistant to the director of research at the Curtis Publishing Company in...