Theodore Taylor was born June 23, 1921 in Statesville, North Carolina, and attended the United State Merchant Marine Academy in New York in the early 1940s. Taylor served in the Merchant Marine and United States Navy for several years, and saw active service in World War II. In the 1940s and 1950s, Taylor worked as a sports editor and writer, reporter, publicist, and producer, with a number of years spent in Hollywood. In the 1950s, he began writing for adults and in 1967 produced his first juvenile work People Who Make Movies.

In 1969, Taylor published The Cay, a critically praised story of the experiences and gradually shift in attitudes of Philip,a young, white, Southern, boy who survives a shipwreck and blindness with the help of an elderly black man, Timothy, whose compassion, assistance, and resilience cause Philip to re-think many of his attitudes about race and friendship. While the book was almost overwhelmingly well-received, a few critics have denigrated the book for it's portrayal of Timothy and its supposed "colonialist" and "patronizing" attitudes towards blacks. However, most have noted that the book is historical fiction, set during the Second World War, seen and narrated through the eyes of a young Southern boy and to criticize Taylor's approach and story is naive and simplistic given its time period and context. Taylor's sequel/prequel to The Cay, Timothy of the Cay (1993), continues the story from Philip's perspective and gives its background from Timothy's; like its predecessor it has been well received.

Many of Taylor's books use his love and knowledge of the sea and his North Carolina background. His "Cape Hatteras Trilogy" Teetoncey, Teetoncey and Ben O'Neal, and The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal draw on both of these interests. Taylor uses the themes of survival against the odds and the boy protagonist challenged by the environment and his circumstances in these books as well as some of his other young adult novels. Taylor's interest in the sea has also led him to write several works of non-fiction dealing with various battleships during World War II. Theodore Taylor has continued to write young adult books with his "Tuck" stories dealing with the love between dog and human and others focusing on World War II.