Vanauken was born into a wealthy family in Indiana. He was educated at various private schools up until his attendance at Wabash College, during which time he was to meet his wife, Davy. After marrying Davy, he was called into the naval service due to World War II and was stationed at Pearl Harbor during and after the infamous attack by Japanese forces. After his naval service, he and Davy studied at Yale and Oxford, and Vanauken eventually settled into a teaching job at Lynchburg College in rural Virginia, where he would teach the rest of his life.

Vanauken’s experiences as a highly educated and well-traveled individual and as a professor of English and an accomplished poet allowed him to compose a memoir such as A Severe Mercy with uncommon grace and insight. The same story coming from any other pen would not have been able to relate the same gravitas or emotional depth that such a narrative demands.

Jean Davis, known to her friends as Davy, was the middle child of her parents’ three children and met the author while attending the same college—she was a freshman, and he was a junior.