Charles Greenleaf Bell was born on October 31, 1916, in Greenville, Mississippi. He earned a degree in physics from the University of Virginia in the 1930s and later studied literature at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He taught physics, English literature, and poetry at a number of colleges and universities, including Iowa State, Princeton University, the University of Chicago, St. John's College in Annapolis, MD, and St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM. Bell authored three books of poetry (Songs for a New America, Delta Return, and Five Chambered Heart) and two novels (The Married Land and The Half Gods). He also created and performed multimedia shows called Symbolic History: Through Sight and Sound that trace the evolution of Western civilization through sight and sound. He remained an active writer and educator even into his old age. In 2006, at the age of 90, Bell published an autobiography titled Millennial Harvest. He passed away four years later on December 25, 2010, in Belgrade, ME, at the age of 94.