A college teacher of literature, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was an editor and popularizer of comparative mythology. He created comprehensive theories of mythology that synthesized the discoveries of modern science, psychology, art history, and literature and used modern media, including television, to popularize his subject.

Joseph Campbell was born March 26, 1904, in New York City, the son of Charles William Campbell, a hosiery importer and wholesaler, and Josephine Lynch. He was raised Roman Catholic. He traced his lifelong fascination with mythology to his having seen Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as a child and to trips with his brother and sister to the Museum of Natural History. At age nine he and his family moved to New Rochelle, New York, next to the public library, where he read exhaustively about Native American cultures and precociously educated himself.

He attended Dartmouth College in 1921-1922, then transferred to Columbia University and switched...