The guild was founded in 1938 by American philologist and medieval historian Urban T. Holmes, Jr. and has included notable members such as W. H. Auden, Cleanth Brooks, Brooks Otis, Henry Babcock Veatch, Frederick Pottle, Stringfellow Barr, George Parshall, Marshall Fishwick, Margaret Morgan Lawrence, Ursula Niebuhr, Dell Hymes, Hyatt Waggoner, Howard Roelofs, Hoxie Fairchild, Walter Lowrie (author), Charles Forker, and Richard W. Bailey.
Current members include the literary academics John V. Fleming, Debora Shuger, Marsha Dutton, Jameela Lares, and Nicholas Birns, the musician Royce Boyer, the religious historians David L. Holmes, Philip Jenkins, and Robert Bruce Mullin, archivists Mark Duffy, Michael Krasulski, Richard Mammana, and the classicist Warren Smith. David Hurd offered a regular organ recital for many years when the Guild was meeting in New York.