William Robert Bittner was born in 1922,[1] the son of John E. Bittner and his wife. He was raised in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, graduating from its high school in 1938.[2]
In 1942, he was a student at the State Teachers College in Lock Haven. That year, he published a poem titled "Corporal Cloud, Before Battle" in the college's literary journal The Crucible and won an annual student poetry competition hosted by The Atlantic Monthly.[2] He was editor of the College Times newspaper and a members of the College Players, performing in plays including Watch on the Rhine.[3] He also wrote his own plays to be performed.[4] Bittner graduated from the school in 1943.[5] After graduating, he served in the military during World War II.[6]
In 1949, he studied at the University of Pennsylvania's graduate school and taught in the university's Wharton School.[7] He received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in June 1955.[8]
In 1958, Bittner published a work on the writer Waldo Frank, titled The Novels of Waldo Frank.[9] In preparation for the book, he communicated with Frank and studied his manuscript collection held by the University of Pennsylvania.[5]
By June 1958, Bittner had received a research grant to begin writing a biography on Edgar Allan Poe. It was stated that the work "may present Poe in a more sympathetic light".[9] His biography of Poe was published in 1962 under the title Poe: A Biography. The book was criticised by Thomas Ollive Mabbott who wrote that it was "an extraordinarily careless book" and that there was "little new save pure fiction" contained within it.[11] Leon Howard of the University of California, Los Angeles praised Bittner's skills in writing a "readable and sane biography" but was critical of his lack of literary awareness.[12]