Hall, a 1936 graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine who received his P.H.D. from Yale University in 1941, taught at several educational institutions including Deerfield Academy and Yale, before he taught English at Bowdoin from 1946 to 1967. He retired as a Henry Leland Chapman professor in 1986 and was a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1956. Additionally, he was an active advocate of the arts in Maine, served to the rank of lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve (1943-46), and was director of a censorship intelligence unit of the Office of Strategic Services (1942).

His short story, The Ledge (1959), won first place in the O. Henry Prize Collection in 1960, and has appeared in more than thirty anthologies. His novel, Stowaway (1960), unanimously received the William Faulkner Award for best debut novel. He also contributed to several journals including The Hudson Review.