William J. (William John) Fielding

Born in New Jersey in 1886, William John Fielding left school before completing the eighth grade and worked in blast furnaces and as a sandhog boring tunnels beneath the Hudson River. In 1906, he turned toward clerical work by studying bookkeeping and accounting, and in 1909 became secretary to the Tiffany Company, where he remained until retiring in 1963.

Fielding began publishing articles in the New York Call in 1913 and studied at the Rand School of Social Science, developing a lasting interest in social problems and birth control. He went on to write books and pamphlets on sexology, psychology, and social life, including Psycho-analysis: The Key to Human Behavior, The Caveman Within Us, Homo-sexual Life, and Strange Customs of Courtship and Marriage.

Around thirty of his works appeared in the Little Blue Books series, including the thirteen-volume Rational Sex collection. Fielding died in 1973, leaving behind a body of popular writing that brought discussions of sexuality and psychology to a broad general audience.