 Brittain was born in Rochester, New York.He decided he wanted to be a 5th-grade teacher, and in addition to teaching, used to read stories in mystery magazines.After some time, he decided he could do as good a job at writing as some of the authors he read; he got coaching on writing from Frederic Dannay of "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" (in which, along with "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine", most of his mystery stories were published).