Born in Vulcan, Romania (Transylvania),[note 1] Wolf was originally named 'Ludovic', which was changed upon his arrival in the United States in 1930 with his mother, Rose-ita, older brother, Maxim (Mel) and younger sister, Shirly.
[2] He wrote and published numerous poems, short stories, book reviews and articles, and was part of the Berkeley Renaissance of the late 1940s and 1950s.
[3] He was a professor of English at San Francisco State University (SFSU) until moving to New York around 1980, focussing on teaching poetry.
He is the author of several books including A Dream of Dracula, Blood Thirst, 100 Years of Vampire Fiction (editor), Bluebeard : The Life and Crimes of Gilles De Rais, Doubles, Dummies and Dolls : Twenty-One Terror Tales of Replication (editor), Dracula : the Connoisseur's Guide, False Messiah, Horror - A Connoisseur's Guide To Literature And Film, Monsters: Twenty Terrible and Wonderful Beasts From The Classic Dragon And Colossal Minotaur To King Kong And The Great Godzilla, Quiromancia/ Chiromancy, The False Messiah, Voices from the love generation (Little, Brown, 1968), The Glass Mountain: A Novel (Overlook Press, 1993), The Passion of Israel [By] Leonard Wolf.
[5] While teaching at San Francisco State University in 1967, Wolf founded Happening House,[6] one of many organizations that originated with the hippies of the Haight Ashbury district.