Born in West Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland, Brooks grew up to become the first principal of Baltimore City College, the third oldest public high school in the United States, and the only president of the Baltimore Female College, the first institution of higher education for women in Maryland.

He also was the owner of the literary magazine The American Museum in which he published several works of the famed poet Edgar Allan Poe, and the author of several textbooks on classical literature.

[4] In 1839, Brooks was unanimously selected out of a pool of 45 candidates to be the first principal of the new male high school in Baltimore—later renamed the Baltimore City College.

[7] In 1838, Brooks purchased Summer Lincoln Fairfield's The North American Quarterly and moved the publication from Philadelphia to Baltimore.

Brooks partnered with Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass, a Baltimore physician, to transform the publication into The American Museum of Science, Literature and the Arts.

In his review, Poe wrote, "among many inferior compositions of length, there were several shorter pieces of great merit;—for example 'Shelley's Obsequies' and 'The Nicthanthes'.

[10] In addition to his poetry and prose, Brooks authored several textbooks, which focused mainly on classical literature, and a few popular history texts.