Stephen Vincent Benét was born on July 22, 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He felt a strong military influence during his childhood from his father, J. Walker Benét, who was an army colonel, and his mother, Frances Neill Benét, who descended from a Kentucky military family. Colonel J. Walker Benét was a great reader, especially of poetry, which helped shape his son's own love for reading and later writing. When Stephen was ten years old, he was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy where he was quite unhappy. He was often abused by his school mates for his love of reading and dislike of athletics.

Benét was seventeen when his first book, Five Men and Pompey, a collection of verse, was published. During World War I, Benét worked in Washington, D.C., as a clerk, since, due...