Novelist Bernard Augustine DeVoto's father was one of the original Mormon pioneers who settled Utah. He began his education at the University of Utah, then transferred to Harvard University in Massachusetts. When World War I broke out he enlisted in the army and was posted as an infantry lieutenant, but did not see combat overseas. He returned to Harvard after the war and graduated in 1920.

From 1922-27 he was an instructor and assistant professor of English at Northwestern University, then took a job teaching at Harvard. In 1936 he accepted a job as editor of "The Saturday Review of Literature", but left two years later and returned to Harvard. His interest in American history, and especially of the American west, led him to write several novels on the subject, most notably "Across the Wide Missouri", which was made into a film (Across the Wide Missouri (1951)) with Clark Gable.