Joseph Campbell

Born in New York in 1904, as a boy Campbell loved Native American
mythology. When he was 15 his family home burned down, killing his
grandmother and destroying his collection of Indian books and relics.
At Dartmouth College he studied biology and mathematics, later transferring
to Columbia University where he wrote a Master's thesis on the
Arthurian legends. He excelled as an athlete, setting the New York City
record for the half-mile, and played saxophone in jazz bands.
In 1927 a scholarship took him to study old languages at the
University of Paris, before transferring to the University of Munich to
read Sanskrit literature and Indo-European philology. Back in the US
he based himself at a shack near Woodstock for several years, and during
this time also traveled to California, where he met John and Carol
Steinbeck and their neighbor Ed Ricketts, immortalized in Steinbeck's
Cannery Row.
Campbell's first real job was a modest post at the newly founded
women's college, Sarah Lawrence, where he remained for 38 years,
marrying former student and dancer Jean Erdman. He slowly increased
his list of publications, including A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake
(1944), and co-editing and translating The Upanishads. The Hero with
a Thousand Faces was published in 1949.
Campbell lectured to diverse audiences including the US State
Department, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and the Esalen Institute,
and traveled widely. Notable later works include the series The Masks
of God (1969), The Mythic Image (1974), and The Inner Reaches of
Outer Space (1986). He died in Honolulu in 1987.