Born in Willington, Connecticut, Sparks studied in the common schools, worked for a time at the carpenter's trade, and then became a schoolteacher.

He founded and edited in 1830, the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, which was continued by others and long remained a popular annual.

[5] After extensive researches at home and in London and Paris in 1828–1829, he published The Writings of George Washington (12 volumes, 1834–1837; redated 1842), his most important work.

The work was for the most part favorably received, but Sparks was severely criticized by Lord Mahon (in the sixth volume of his History of England) and others for altering the text of some of Washington's writings.

While continuing his studies abroad in 1840–1841, Sparks discovered in the French archives the red-line map that, in 1842 gained international prominence in connection with the dispute over the north-eastern U.S.-Canadian boundary.

[2] Sparks was one of the American intellectuals who received French author and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville during his 1831–1832 visit to the United States.

Their extensive conversations and subsequent correspondence informed de Tocqueville's best-known work, Democracy in America.

In 1853 Sparks retired on account of failing health, and devoted the rest of his life to his private studies.

Jared Sparks died on March 14, 1866, in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Other works by Sparks include: He also edited the Library of American Biography, in two series (10 and 15 volumes, respectively, 1834–1838, 1844–1847), - - to which he contributed articles on the lives of Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne, Henry Vane the Younger, Ethan Allen, spy, Gen. Benedict Arnold, explorer Jacques Marquette, explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Kazimierz Pulaski ("Count Pulaski"), Jean Ribault, Gen. Charles Lee and John Ledyard, the last a reprint of his earlier work.