Leslie Aaron Fiedler was born March 8, 1917 in Newark, New Jersey. Fiedler left Newark as soon as he could and ventured north to pursue his education. After receiving his B.A. from New York University in 1938, Fiedler pursued graduate studies in English at the University of Wisconsin where he received both his M.A. and Ph.D.

Fiedler's first academic position was at Montana State University, Missoula, where he was hired as an assistant professor in 1941. In 1963 he transferred to the State University of New York at Buffalo where he remained for the duration of his career.

From 1974 to 1977, Fiedler served as chair of the University's Department of English. He was promoted to SUNY Distinguished Professor in 1987 and in 1989 he received the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, the highest award given by UB. Fiedler held the department's prestigious Samuel L. Clemens Chair for thirty years. After his death in 2003, the position was renamed the Leslie A. Fiedler Chair.

One of the giants of 20th century literary criticism, Fiedler was widely respected in his field. In 1988 he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters as a member of the Department of Literature and in December 1994 the Modern Language Association awarded Fiedler the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Contribution to the Study of American Literature.

Arguably his most significant work is Love and Death in the American Novel (1960), in which he explores homoerotic and death themes in American literature. A reviewer said of this novel: "How quickly Americans forget. No one covers American literature with more knowledge, humor, insight and depth. This work is an American classic like the classics he covers: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn and The Scarlet Letter. I don't know how you get through graduate school without reading this work, the first in a trilogy. Fiedler's other two fine books being Waiting for the End, and The Return of the Vanishing American."