Eleanor Louise Nicholes (1915-1997) was born on 14 January 1915 in American Fork, Utah, the second of nine children born to Joseph K. and Olive Maiben Nicholes. She received a B.A. in English Literature from Brigham Young University in 1936 and taught in the Utah public school system until 1942.

Nicholes was commissioned as a second Lieutenant in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1943 and served as a hospital administrative officer until the end of World War II, when she resumed her education. She was awarded the Ph.D. from New York University in 1950. Her dissertation, "The Shadowed Mind: Effects of the Schizophrenic Process on the Poetry of John Clare," reflected her lifelong interest in both literature and psychology.

After obtaining an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Minnesota, Nicholes served as rare books librarian at the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library in New York from 1954 to 1960. She was awarded a Fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in 1960, which allowed her to travel to London and supported her research for a never-completed biography of English novelist and East India Company administrator, Thomas Love Peacock. She was Special Collection's Librarian at Wellesley College for many years, retiring from that position in 1982. Nicholes returned to Utah in 1986. She served on the board of the Friends of the University of Utah Library and was active in the American Association of University Women. She died in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 14 November 1997.