James David Hart was born in San Francisco in 1911. He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in American Literature from Harvard. He later became a faculty member of Berkeley as an English professor, held the post of Vice Chancellor of the Berkeley campus from 1957-1960, and was also the director of the Bancroft Library from 1969 to 1970.

He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Mills College, as well as being a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Antiquarian Society. Hart served as president of the Book Club of California from 1950 to 1960. Hart wrote and edited multiple books, including the Oxford Companion to American Literature. He also printed his own ephemera (mainly about the Western United States) in his home, the location of the Hart Press.

He married twice: Ruth Hart (died in 1977), and Constance Crowley Bowles Hart (who survived Hart) and had two children. Hart died in 1990 in Berkeley.