Both John and Patricia Beatty were born in Portland, Oregon, in 1922, and graduated from Reed College.

Patricia then studied at the University of Idaho and at the University of Washington in Seattle. John received his master's degree from Stanford University and his doctorate from the University of Washington. He served in Europe with the U.S. Army during World War II, earning the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantryman's Badge. After the war, he was a professor of history and humanities at the University of California, where his major field of interest was seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English history. He received a Foundation for Economic Education fellowship in 1953 and an American Philosophical Society grant in 1959.

The Beattys were married in 1950.

Their first collaboration, At the Seven Stars, was named an outstanding book for young adults by the New York Times in 1963. The...