[3][4] She studied at Hathaway Brown School and Radcliffe College (where she obtained a BA in 1958).
[6] While working at UM Amherst, she published two books: Samuel Richardson (1972) and A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton (1977).
[6] In 1984, Wolff received an American Council of Learned Societies Grant-In-Aid for a project called "The life of Emily Dickinson".
[6] Wolff worked on a third biography, focusing on Willa Cather, but it was abandoned and remained unpublished at the time of her death.
Her first marriage, to political philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, lasted from 1962 until their divorce in 1986.