Bishop attended Cornell University from 1910 to 1913, earning a Bachelor's and a Morrison Poetry Prize in 1913 and then a Master of Arts degree in 1914. He then sold textbooks for Ginn &amp; Co, joined the U.S. Cavalry (during which time he unhappily served under Pershing in the "punitive expedition" in Mexico), was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Infantry in World War I, and worked in a New York advertising agency, before returning to Cornell to begin teaching in 1921 and to earn a Ph.D. in 1926; his thesis being on the plays of Jules Lemaître. He was associated for the whole of his adult life with Cornell, as alumnus, Kappa Alpha Professor of Romance Literature, and University Historian. In 1962, he wrote the standard history of the university, "A History of Cornell." In 1962, Bishop was presented with a festschrift, "Studies in Seventeenth-Century French Literature". A review concluded that the book "demonstrates a continuing vitality and . . . an increasing sophistication in the study of French baroque (?) literature".